SUNDRY  CIVIL  APPROPRIATION  BILL. 


SPEECH  OF  HON.  EUGENE  HALE, 

OF  MAINE, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OP  REPRESENTATIVES,  TUESDAY,  AUGUST  8,  1876. 


The  House  having  under  consideration  the 
motion  to  reconsider  the  vote  by  which  the 
President’s  message  was  referred  to  the  Com¬ 
mittee  on  Appropriations— 

Mr.  HALE  said  : 

Mr.  Speaker  :  I  propose,  as  certain  short¬ 
comings  of  this  House  have  been  referred  to 
in  the  message  of  the  President,  to  review 
some  of  the  incidents  and  events  of  this  ses¬ 
sion  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  I  am 
all  the  more  inclined  to  this  duty,  sir,  because 
upon  Tuesday  last  the  gentleman  from  Miss¬ 
issippi  [Mr.  Lamar]  declared  that  there  is  a 
wide  and  general  dissatisfaction  with  the  re¬ 
publican  party  throughout  the  country,  and 
that  the  people  demanded  a  change.  While 
listening  to  that  declaration,  I  thought  of  the 
counter  blast  of  Carl  Schurz,  who  says  lately 
that  whatever  maybe  the  errors  of  the  repub¬ 
lican  party,  it  is  very  clear  that  democracy 
affords  no  relief.  Luckily  the  present  House 
of  Representatives  gives  us  the  chance  to 
judge  of  democracy,  not  by  its  promises,  but 
by  its  performances. 

That  pg rty  carried  the  country  in  the  half 
revolution  which  swept  over  the  country  in 
1874.  To  all  appearance  it  had  the  popular 
voice  behind  it.  It  secured  almost  two-thirds 
of  the  members  upon  this  floor,  thus  giving 
to  it  almost  irresistible  power  to  drive  through 
any  needed  and  justly  desired  reform,  should 
it  take  upon  its  shoulders  any  such  measure. 
It  had  to  all  appearance,  I  say,  the  popular 
voice  to  sustain  it.  Democracy  was  here  in 
such  strength  that  whatever  wise  measures  it 
should  propose  for  actual  relief  to  any  suffer¬ 
ing  interest,  there  never  has  been  a  time  when 
it  could  not  against  all  objections  in  other 
quarters  drive  both  the  Senate  and  the  Exec¬ 
utive  into  consonant  action.  For,  Mr.  Speaker, 
it  has  never  been,  and  I  venture  to  predict 
will  never  be  the  case,  that  the  popular  branch 
of  the  American  Congress,  when  it  is  com¬ 
mitted  to  any  just  measure  of  reform,  any 
wide-reaching  policy  that  meets  with  approval 
from  the  people,  can  be  stayed  either  by  the 
Senate  or  by  the  Executive.  In  that  regard, 
whenever  that  question  and  that  time  shall 
be  reached,  American  History  will  duplicate 
English  history,  and  it  will  be  found,  as  it 
should  be  found,  that  with  the  House  arrayed 
for  the  right,  and  the  Senate  or  the  Executive 
arrayed  for  the  wrong,  the  Senate  or  the  Ex¬ 
ecutive  must  and  will  yield. 

The  dominant  party  in  the  House  of  Rep¬ 
resentatives  had  such  an  opportunity  afforded 
it  when  it  assembled  on  the  first  Monday  of 
December  last  as  no  party  has  ever  had.  The 
whole  country  was  intent  upon  the  action  of 
that  party  for  the  coming  session.  It  had 
been  sent  here  upon  certain  promises  of  re¬ 
form  in  directions  that  affected  the  living  in¬ 
terests  of  the  people — the  question  of  civil 
service  reform,  the  question  of  relief  from 


taxation,  the  question  of  finance  and  the  cur¬ 
rency,  and  other  broad  general  questions — 
upon  none  of  which  that  party  failed  to  prom¬ 
ise  largely  in  the  canvass,  that  resulted  in  its 
success.  In  December  last  its  promises  ma¬ 
tured,  and  it  was  confronted  with  pay-day. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  no  time  to  speak 
at  length  of  the  spectacle  that  Washington 
City  presented  to  the  country  at  the  date  of 
the  assembling  of  this  Congress.  There  were 
to  be  distributed  by  the  dominant  party  in  the 
House  in  all  perhaps  three  hundred  offices, 
reckoning  from  the  page  upon  the  floor  and 
the  folder  below  up  to  the  Speakership  and 
Clerkship  of  the  House.  And  every  gentle¬ 
man  here  remembers  that  the  city  was  crowded 
in  its  streets,  that  the  hotels  and  the  corri¬ 
dors  of  the  House  were  thronged,  and  that 
for  every  place  a  hundred  hungry  applicants 
presented  themselves  here,  clamoring  and 
scrambling  for  the  good  places,  and,  failing 
in  them,  for  the  small  places.  The  House  was 
organized,  and  the  work  of  the  headsman  be¬ 
gan  at  once.  Now,  I  appeal  to  any  member 
upon  this  floor  who  was  here  in  the  last  Con¬ 
gress  to  look  over  the  places  attached  to  this 
House,  and  which  fell  under  the  control  of 
democracy  under  the  promise  of  a  civil  service 
reform,  and  see  how  many  familiar  faces  he 
discovers,  faces  that  were  here  in  the  last  Con- 

§ress.  Two  or  three  only  arrest  my  attention. 

'ne  gentleman  in  the  Clerk’s  office  is  allowed 
to  remain  there  because  of  his  familiarity  with 
certain  financial  details  and  the  difficulty  of 
filling  his  place .  The  paying-teller  in  the  Ser- 
geant-at-Arms’s  office  is  left,  and  here  and 
there  is  spared,  as  a  monument  of  the  past, 
an  old  soldier  attending  our  doors.  All  of  the 
rest  have  been  ruthlessly  submitted  to  the  ax 
of  the  headsman,  have  been  turned  out,  and 
others  put  in  their  places. 

Mr.  SPRINGER.  There  are  more  Union 
soldiers  in  the  employ  of  this  House  than  were 
in  the  employ  of  the  last  House. 

Mr.  HALE.  I  have  heard  that  statement 
before.  I  do  not  accept  it  as  true;  my  figures 
are  different  now. 

Mr.  RUSK.  Soldiers  of  which  army? 

Mr.  SPRINGER.  Soldiers  who  were  in  the 
Union  service. 

Mr.  HALE.  This  was  a  specimen  of  civil- 
service  reform  with  a  vengeance.  But  it  had 
one  advantage,  and  my  friends  on  the  other 
side  were  entitled  to  that  advantage.  It  dis¬ 
embarrassed  the  party  in  control.  It  left  the 
House  in  the  hands  of  its  friends.  And  look¬ 
ing  on  and  remembering  how  his  party  prom¬ 
ised  reform  in  political  methods  and  modera¬ 
tion  whenever  it  should  be  placed  in  power,  it 
may  be  that  Governor  Tilden  interpreted  the 
action  of  his  party  as  the  fulfillment  of  its 
promises,  and  therefore  in  his  letter  of  accept¬ 
ance  encourages  the  faithful  followers  of  civil- 
service  reform  in  these  ingenious  words  : 


2 


The  public  interest  in  an  honest,  skillful 
performance  of  official  trust  must  not  be  sac¬ 
rificed  to  the  usufruct  of  the  incumbents. 

I  fancy  that  we  are  likely  to  hear  something 
of  the  “usufruct  of  the  incumbents”  as  a 
political  evil  should  the  presidential  election 
go  democratic. 

But  I  must  follow  the  course  of  the  House. 
The  Speaker  was  elected  and  appointed  his 
committees,  and  just  here  was  a  most  serious 
outcropping  of  what  might  be  expected  in  the 
future  if  the  elections  of  1874  be  repeated  in 
1876.  It  had  been  predicted,  it  had  been 
feared,  that  a  democratic  triumph  meant  the 
restoration  to  power  of  that  element  in  the 
democratic  party  which  carried  the  country 
into  civil  war,  and  maintained  that  war  for 
four  cruel,  tragic,  desolating  years.  There 
was  throughout  the  country  a  growing  suspi¬ 
cion  that  this  was  a  threatening  danger.  The 
democratic  leaders  kneiv  this  feeling  of  ap¬ 
prehension  in  the  country  ;  they  have  always 
denied  it,  and  there  have  been  here  and  else¬ 
where  many  protestations  of  modesty  from 
gentlemen  representing  that  element  in  the 
democratic  party,  that  with  them  there  was 
no  existing  intent  of  gaining  the  control  of 
the  Government  through  the  control  of  the 
democratic  party. 

The  gentleman  from  Mississippi  [Mr.  La¬ 
mar]  in  his  speech  declared — I  do  not  use  his 
exact  words — that  if  anj^  man  believed  that 
there  was  any  danger  of  the  South  getting 
control  of  the  democratic  party  or  the  country, 
it  was  a  hallucination  which  observation  and 
a  little  experience  would  surely  dispel.  Ido 
not  quote  his  language,  but  the  spirit  of  his 
statement. 

Now,  the  Speaker  of  this  House  sat  in  that 
chair,  the  representative  of  the  whole  party 
that  had  made  him  speaker.  He  it  was  who 
could  feel  his  party’s  pulse  and  measure  its 
demands.  As  1  have  always  believed,  he  is  a 
very  fair  man;  a  man  who  will  endeavor  under 
any  circumstances  to  do  what  he  believes  is 
right,  withal  an  intense  party  man,  and  one 
who,  instead  of  setting  himself  in  the  way  of 
a  pronounced  demand  by  his  party,  would 
seek  to  answer  that  demand. 

His  first  duty  was  to  organize  the  commit¬ 
tees  of  this  House  and  to  appoint  their  chair¬ 
men.  This  is  one  of  the  most  delicate  duties 
intrusted  to  the  Speaker  of  the  House.  The 
legislation  of  the  country  is  shaped  in  the 
committee-rooms .  The  voice  of  the  commit¬ 
tee  is  uttered  by  its  chairman.  His  influence 
is  largely  potential;  he  represents  the  essen¬ 
tial  interests  committed  to  his  committee,  and 
aside  from  his  membership  is  looked  upon  by 
the  country,  if  he  be  a  man  of  prominence,  as 
the  indication  of  the  policy  to  be  pursued  by 
the  committee  on  matters  submitted  to  it. 
These  chairmanships  are  the  highest  honors 
that  the  Speaker  can  confer.  They  are  greatly 
desired  by  the  ablest  men  in  the  House. 

Now  I  have  here  a  list  of  the  committees  of 
the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  with  the  chair¬ 
man  of  each  and  the  section  and  State  from 
which  he  comes.  I  have  taken  the  thirty- 
three  old  standing  committees  of  the  House, 
who  do  its  work,  who  shape  legislation,  who 
give  tone  and  character  to  all  that  we  do 
here. 

COMMITTEES  OF  THE  FORTY-FOURTH  CONGRESS 
WITH  SOUTHERN  CHAIRMEN. 

Elections,  Mr.  Harris,  of  Virginia  ;  Pacific 
Railroad,  Mr.  Lamar,  of  Mississippi ;  Claims, 
Mr.  Bright,  of  Tennessee ;  Commerce,  Mr. 


Hereford,  of  West  Virginia;  Post-Office  and 
Post-ltoads,  Mr.  Clark,  of  Missouri ;  District, 
of  Columbia,  Mr.  Buckner,  of  Missouri;  Ju¬ 
diciary,  Mr.  Knott,  of  Kentucky ;  Public  Ex¬ 
penditures,  Mr.  Milliken,  of  Kentucky;  Pri¬ 
vate  Land  Claims,  Mr.  Gunter,  of  Arkansas  ; 
Manufactures,  Mr.  Stone,  of  Missouri ;  Ag¬ 
riculture,  Mr.  Caldwell,  of  Alabama ;  Indian 
Affairs,  Mr.  Scales,  of  North  Carolina  ;  Naval 
Affairs,  Mr.  Whitthorne,  of  Tennessee;  For¬ 
eign  Affais,  Mr.  Swann,  of  Maryland ;  Revo¬ 
lutionary  Pensions,  Mr.  Hunton,  of  Virginia  ; 
Railways  and  Canals,  Mr.  Jones,  of  Ken¬ 
tucky  ;  Mines  and  Mining,  Mr.  Bland,  of  Mis¬ 
souri;  Education  and  Lanor,  Mr.  Walker,  of 
Virginia;  Revision  of  the  Laws,  Mr.  Dur¬ 
ham,  of  Kentucky;  Coinage,  Weights,  and 
Measures,  Mr.  Stevens,  of  Georgia  ;  Patents, 
Mr.  Vance,  of  North  Carolina. 

COMMITTEES  WITH  NORTHERN  CHAIRMEN. 

Ways  and  Means,  Mr.  Morrison,  of  Illinois ; 
Appropriations,  Mr.  Randall,  of  Pennsylva¬ 
nia  ;  Banking  and  Currency,  Mr.  Cox,  of 
New  York;  Public  Lands,  Mr.  Sayler,  of 
Ohio;  War  Claims,  Mr.  Edeiff  Illinois;  Mili¬ 
tary  Affairs,  Mr.  Banning,  of  Ohio;  Militia, 
Mr.  Cowan,  of  Ohio  ;  Territories,  Mr.  South¬ 
ard,  of  Ohio ;  Invalid  Pensions,  Mr.  Jcnks,  of 
Pennsylvania;  Public  Buildings  and  Grounds 
Mr.  Holman,  of  Indiana;  Accounts,  Mr.  Wil¬ 
liams,  of  Indiana;  Library,  Mr.  Clyiner,  of 
Pennsylvania. 

In  this  list  I  have  not  taken  into  account 
either  the  small  and  heretofore  unknown 
committee  on  expenditures  of  the  different 
Departments  nor  the  special  committees.  I 
take  the  old  standing  committees,  who  al¬ 
ways  have  done  and  will  do  the  important 
work  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 

Here  it  is  seen  that  of  these  thirty-three 
committees  organized  by  the  Speaker  in  the 
first  month  of  this  session,  twenty-one  are 
put  into  the  hands  of  gentlemen  from  the 
section  lately  hostile  to  the  Government,  and 
which  it  is  claimed  is  not  seeking  to  arro¬ 
gate  power  in  the  democratic  party;  while 
upon  the  other  side  are  but  twelve  commit¬ 
tees  given  to  the  entire  Northern  States. 

And  these  twenty-one  committees  that  are 
so  entrusted  are  not  obscure  committees.  I 
find  among  them  the  Committee  of  Electionsr 
the  first  on  the  list,  a  committee  that  largely 
controls  and  shapes  the  membership  of  this 
House.  The  Committee  of  Claims,  with  all 
of  the  responsibility  of  dealing  justly  with 
good  claims  and  yet  of  protecting  the  Treas¬ 
ury  from  bad  ones,  is  in  the  list.  The  import¬ 
ant  Committee  on  Commerce,  treating  some 
of  the  largest  subjects  that  the  American  peo¬ 
ple  deal  with.  The  Committee  for  the  Dis¬ 
trict  of  Columbia;  the  Committee  on  the  Ju¬ 
diciary,  the  great  law  committee  of  the  House; 
the  Committee  on  Private  Land  Claims;  the 
Committee  on  Manufactures;  the  Committees 
on  Indian  Affairs,  on  Naval  Affairs,  on  For¬ 
eign  Affairs,  on  Railways  and  Canals,  on 
Mines  and  Mining,  on  Education  and  Labor, 
and  other  committees  are  intrusted  to  south¬ 
ern  men. 

And  in  this  first  act  of  the  democratic  party 
through  its  Speaker,  indicating  Where  in  the 
future  power  must  be  lodged  if  that  party  ob¬ 
tains  control  of  the  Government  .  I  find  that 
the  section  of  the  country  from  which  I  come, 
New  England,  although  she  felt  the  revul¬ 
sion  in  1874  and  elected  a  large  delegation  of 
democrats  to  this  Congress,  was  not  awarded 
a  single  chairmanship;  while  Kentucky  has 
four,  Missouri  as  many,  Virginia  three,  and 
other  southern  States  several  each. 

I  have  here  an  old  Directory  of  Congress  In 


3 


the  days  before  the  war,  and  I  have  looked  it 
over  to  see  liow  committees  were  apportioned 
then,  and  I  do  not  find  the  South  more  strongly 
intrenched  than  now  under  the  Speaker  of 
this  House  acting  at  the  dictation  of  his  party 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Forty-fourth  Con¬ 
gress.  Yet  we  are  to  be  lulled  by  the  talk 
which  w'e  hear  that  there  is  no  danger  of  the 
southern  element  in  the  democratic  party  con¬ 
trolling  and  dictating  its  course  in  the  future. 
Bearing  upon  this  and  showing  how  closely 
most  of  these  prominent  gentlemen  were  con¬ 
nected  with  the  “lost  cause,”  I  give  a  list  of 
the  members  of  this  Congress  who  were  in 
6ome  way  associated  with  the  “confederacy.” 
The  list  has  been  made  up  from  the  Congres¬ 
sional  Directory. 

REBEL  OFFICERS  IN  CONGRESS. 

Senators— Goldthwaite,  Ala.,  Adjutant  Gen¬ 
eral;  Jones,  Fla.,  Bridadier  General:  Gordon, 
Ga.,  Major  General;  Alcorn,  Miss.,  Brigadier 
General;  Cockrell,  Mo.,  Major  General;  Ran¬ 
som,  N.  C.,  Major  General;  Key,  Tenn.,  Lieu¬ 
tenant  Colonel;  Maxey,  Tex.,  Major  General 
and  Superintendent  Indian  Affairs;  Withers, 
Va.,  Colonel. 

Representatives  —  Williams,  Ala.,  Major; 
Bradford,  Ala.,  Colonel;  Hayes,  Ala.,  Briga¬ 
dier  General;  Hewitt,  Ala.,  Colonel;  Forney, 
Ala.,  Brigadier  General;  Lewis,  Ala.,  Colo¬ 
nel;  Gause,  Ark.,  Colonel;  Slemons,  Ark., 
Brigadier  General;  Gunter,  Arlc.,  Colonel; 
Smith,  Ga.,  Captain;  Hart  ridge,  Ga.,  Colonel; 
Cook,  Ga.,  Major  General;  Hill,  Ga.,  Colonel 
Recruiting  Service;  Blackburn,  Ky.,  Lieu¬ 
tenant  Colonel;  Gibson,  La.,  Brigadier  Gene¬ 
ral;  Ellis.  La.,  Captain;  Levy,  La.,  Colonel; 
Lamar,  Miss.,  Colonel  and  Minister  to  Rus¬ 
sia;  Hooker,  Miss.,  Colonel:  Franklin,  Mo., 
Captain;  Clark.  Mo.,  Brigadier  General; 
Yeates,  N.  C.,  Major;  Waddell,  N.  C.,  Lieu¬ 
tenant  Colonel;  Davis,  N.  C.,  Captain;  Scales, 
1ST.  C.,  Brigadier  General;  Robbins,  N.  C.,  Col¬ 
onel;  Vance.  N.  C.,  Brigadier  General;  Dib- 
rell,  Tenn.,  Brigadier  Generali  Whitthorne, 
Tenn.,  Adjutant  General;  Atkins,  Tenn., 
Colonel;  Young,  Tenn.,  Colonel:  Culberson, 
Tex.,  Colonel;  Throckmorton,  Tex.,  Briga- 
dier  General;  Douglas,  Va.,  Major:  Cabell, 
Va.,  Colonel;  Tucker,  Va.,  Captain:  Hunton, 
Va.,  Brigadier  General;  Ferry,  Va.,  Brigadier 
General;  Faulkner.  W.  Va.,  Adjutant  Gene¬ 
ral  and  Minister  to  France;  Reagan,  Tex., 
Brigadier  General  and  Postmaster  General; 
Goode,  Va.,  Colonel;  Hatcher,  Mo.,  Colonel; 
Singleton,  Miss.,  Inspector  General;  House, 
Tenn.,  Major. 

Ex- Members  of  Rebel  Government— Stephens, 
Ga.,  Vice  President;  Reagan,  Tex.,  Postmas¬ 
ter  General;  Hill,  Ga.,  Senator;  Caperton, 
W.  Va.,  Senator;  Ashe,  N.  C.,  Senator;  House, 
Tenn.,  Representative;  Goode,  Va.,  Repre¬ 
sentative;  Smith,  Ga.,  Representative; 
Hatcher,  Mo.,  Representative;  Singleton, 
Miss.,  Representative;  Caldwell,  Ala.,  Solici¬ 
tor  General;  Norwood,  Ga.,  State  Legisla¬ 
ture;  Candler,  Ga.,  State  Legislature;  Tucker, 
Va.,  Attorney  General;  Culberson,  Tex.,  State 
Legislature;  Harris,  Ga.,  State  Legislature; 
Slemons,  Ark.,  State  Legislature;  Gunter, 
Ark.,  State  Legislature;  Lamar,  Miss.,  Min¬ 
ister  to  Russia;  Dibrell,  Tenn.,  State  Legis¬ 
lature;  Hunton,  Va.,  State  Legislature; 
Faulkner,  W.  Va.,  Minister  to  France;  Har¬ 
ris,  W.  Va.,  State  Legislature;  Maxey,  Tex., 
Superintendent  Indian  Affairs. 

Members  of  Congress  Before  Rebellion— Ste¬ 
phens,  Ga.,  Thirty-sixth  Congress;  Lamar, 
Miss., Thirty-sixth  Congress;  Singleton, Miss., 
Thirty-sixth  Congress;  Scales,  N.  C.,  Thirty- 
fifth  Congress;  Atkins,  Tenn.,  Thirty-fifth 
Congress;  Reagan,  Tex.,  Thirty-sixth  Con¬ 
gress;  Faulkner,  W.  Va.,  .Thirty-second  to 
Thirty-sixth  Congresses;  Harris,  Va.,  Thirty- 
sixth  Congress. 

In  the  same  direction  was  the  course  pur¬ 
sued  in  the  various  offices  about  the  House. 

Perhaps  there  is  nothing  that  illustrates 


these  two  propositions,  first,  the  promise  of 
civil-service  reform,  and  then  the  denial  that 
the  South  is  gradually  absorbing  the  demo¬ 
cratic  party,  than  that  presented  by  the  post 
office  of  this  House,  where  a  clean  sweep  was 
made. 

In  the  Forty-third  Congress  the  Postmas¬ 
ter  was  a  Union  soldier,  who  had  lost  a  leg 
at  Kenesaw. 

But  I  will  give  the  lists  for  both  the  Forty- 
third  and  Forty-fourth  Congresses: 

Henry  Sherwood,  Postmaster,  entered  the 
service  in  the  Second  Michigan  Cavalry  early 
in  the  war.  He  was  in  all  the  battles  in  the 
West,  from  Perry sville  to  the  battle  of  Ken¬ 
esaw  Mountain,  In  18(54,  and  lost  a  leg  at  the 
fight  at  Lattimer’s  Mill,  on  the  left  of  Ken¬ 
esaw. 

Joseph  F.  Wilson,  assistant  postmaster, 
entered  the  service  from  Illinois,  and  in  one 
of  the  battles  of  the  war  had  his  lower  jaw 
entirely  shot  aw'ay. 

Francis  A.  Wardell  entered  the  service  in 
1861,  in  a  Massachusetts  regiment,  and  was 
totally  disabled  by  wounds  received  at  the 
battle  of  Winchester,  Virginia,  September  19, 
1864. 

J.  II.  Paine  entered  the  Army  from  Ohio, 
and  served  honorably  during  the  war. 

R.  S.  Bishop  served  in  a  Michigan  regiment 
during  the  war,  and  had  his  arm  shot  away 
by  a  rebel  bullet. 

R.  S.  McMichael,  while  in  service  in  a  Wis¬ 
consin  regiment,  nearly  lost  his  eyesight  in 
the  honorable  discharge  of  his  duty. 

D.  B.  Bradley  enlisted  in  a  Wisconsin  regi¬ 
ment  in  1861,  and  was  honorably  discharged 
November,  1864. 

A.  M.  Legg,  from  New  York,  served  during 
the  war  in  our  Navy. 

C.  M.  Thomas,  Iowa;  J.  H.  Lytle  and  W.  B. 
Sessions,  New  York;  J.  D.  Serun  and  D.  F. 
Bishop,  Pennsylvania;  and  Cripti  Palmoni, 
District  of  Columbia,  were  appointed  from 
civil  life. 

The  employes  of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress 
are  as  follows: 

James  M.  Stewart,  Postmaster,  from  Vir¬ 
ginia,  was  captain  in  the  rebel  army,  and 
served  with  J.  E.  B.  Stuart’s  raiding  cavalry. 

Edgar  Snowden,  assistant  postmaster,  from 
Virginia,  was  a  press  correspondent  in  the 
rebel  army. 

G.  W.  Rock,  Va.,  served  in  the  rebel  army. 

G.  W.  Kennedy,  Va.,  served  in  the  rebel 
army. 

A.  W.  C.  Nowlin,  Va.,  served  in  the  rebel 
army. 

W.  II.  Robertson,  Va.,  served  in  the  rebel 
army. 

J.  R.  Fislier,  Va.,  served  in  the  rebel  army. 

W.  B.  Lowry,  Va.,  served  in  the  rebel  army. 

E.  C.  Glass,  Va.,  served  in  the  rebel  army. 

The  other  employes  .are  Richard  Allen, 

Virginia;  Edward  Estes,  New  York,  who 
took  the  modified  oath. 

I  must  touch  lightly  upon  this  matter  of 
the  outside  organization  of  the  House. 

Here  and  there  individual  cases  attract  at¬ 
tention  and  deserve  mention,  both  as  show¬ 
ing  removals  without  cause  and  also  show 
ing  the  very  superior  order  of  merit  in¬ 
troduced  by  the  party  just  taking  possession 
of  the  House.  For  instance  we  had  an  old 
journal  clerk,  a  venerable  and  accomplished 
man,  who  had  sat  at  that  desk  for  thirty 
years,  who  had  been  adopted  by  a  republican 
administration  sixteen  years  ago,  who  had  sat 
there  as  a  come-over  from  a  democratic  ad¬ 
ministration.  He  is  a  marvel  to-day  of  intel¬ 
ligence  and  accuracy  upon  parliamentary  law, 
and  was  never  more  needed  in  this  House  in 
the  interests  of  correct  legislation  than  at  a 
time  when  new  hands  took  the  reins.  I  refer 
of  course  to  Mr.  Barclay.  But  short  shrift 
was  given  to  him;  and  there  was  substituted 


for  him  a  pronounced  democrat;  and  in  a  little 
while  my  friends  on  the  other  side  found  as 
one  result  of  their  “civil-service  reform”  in 
displacing  this  veteran  that  the  new  incum¬ 
bent  was  thriftily  putting  himself  in  a  position 
to  make  merchandise  of  the  important  place 
that  he  held  here. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Will  the  gentlemen  al¬ 
low  me  a  single  moment  ? 

Mr.  HALE.  I  find  that  my  time  is  being 
consumed  so  fast  that  I  am  afraid  I  shall  not 
be  able  to  yield  any  time  to  the  gentleman 
from  Illinois. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Mr.  Barclay  resigned. 

Mr.  HALE.  We  all  know  about  his  resig¬ 
nation. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Why  did  you  not  state  it? 

Mr.  HALE,  I  will  state  it. 

Mr.  FRANKLIN.  You  said  he  was  dis¬ 
placed. 

Mr.  HALE.  I  say  again  that  he  was  dis¬ 
placed.  When  Mr.  Barclay  found  that  such 
was  the  clamor  and  push  for  office  upon  the 
Clerk  of  this  House  for  his  place  as  well  as 
all  others,  and  that  his  removal  was  immi¬ 
nent,  he  resigned,  and  that  will  not  be  denied. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  It  is  denied. 

Mr.  HALE.  He  resigned  in  order  that  he 
might  show  his  own  self-respect,  as  it  was 
very  proper  he  should  do. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  It  is  positively  denied. 

Mr.  RANDALL.  I  wish  to  correct  one 
statement  of  the  gentleman.  Mr.  Barclay 
resigned  of  his  own  voluntary  accord;  and  I 
think  I  am  authorized  to  say  that  the  Clerk 
of  the  House  never  had  any  disposition  to  re¬ 
move  him. 

Mr.  WHITE.  May  I  ask  the  gentleman 
from  Pennsylvania - 

Mr.  HALE.  I  cannot  yield  further.  It 
was  well  understood  at  the  time  why  Mr. 
Barclay  resigned.  I  wish  to  do  no  injustice 
to  our  Clerk  who  has  these  subordinate  offi¬ 
cers  in  charge.  The  general  system  of  re¬ 
movals  showed  that  nobody  would  be  spared. 
Mr.  Barclay  was  intimately  associated  with 
certain  gentlemen  at  the  Clerk’s  desk  whom 
he  wished  to  remain  if  he  remained  and  so 
stated  his  desire,  as  I  understand,  to  Mr. 
Adams,  the  Clerk.  He  felt  that  assurances 
had  been  given  to  him  in  authoritative  quarters 
that  these  gentlemen  should  be  retained,  apd 
when  they  were  all  removed  both  the  desire 
to  remain  was  gone  and  also  any  confidence 
as  to  his  own  much  further  retention.  The 
way  is  not  important.  The  journal  clerk  went 
out  under  the  system  followed  here. 

The  new  journal  clerk  who  had  been  put  in 
by  this  “reform”  House  was  not  a  great  suc¬ 
cess.  He  had  borne  a  good  reputation,  I 
learn,  before  he  came  into  office,  but  before 
many  weeks  it  was  found  that,  important  and 
delicate  as  were  his  duties,  he  having  in 
charge  the  Journal  of  the  House  which  re¬ 
cords  our  legislation,  he  had  put  himself  in 
communication  with  claims  and  claim  agents 
throughout  the  country  and  proposed  to  make 
profit  of  his  position  by  getting  control  of 
certain  claims  which  were  before  this  House, 
and  which  depended  upon  the  passage  of  cer¬ 
tain  legislation.  So  my  friends  on  the  other 
side  were  not  able  to  keep  him. 

MR.  HARRISON.  And  he  was  from  a 
State  bordering  upon  that  of  the  gentleman 
from  Maine. 

MR.  HALE.  He  was  from  a  State  that 


had  a  strong  and  belligerent  democracy, 
which  claimed  him  as  their  representative  and 
sent  him  here  to  fill  an  important  office. 

The  following  memorandum  has  been  given 
to  me  as  to  the  assistant  journal  clerk  whom 
our  reforming  friends  put  into  Mr.  Clayton's 
place: 

Flanagan,  assistant  journal  clerk,  legislat¬ 
ed  out  June  30,  was  tried  by  court  martial, 
of  which  Gov.  Hayes  was  president,  in  1864, 
for  resisting  draft  and  encouraging  deser¬ 
tion,  as  editor  of  an  Ohio  paper,  found 
guilty,  sent  to  Fort  Delaware;  which  decis¬ 
ion  was  affirmed  by  Gen.  Hooker;  and  when 
the  war  closed  he  was  serving  out  his  sen¬ 
tence. 

Here  are  some  of  the  other  officers  who  in 
a  few  weeks  were  proven  unfit.  I  notice 
them  because  of  the  claim  that  bad  men  are 
to  be  put  out  of  office  and  good  men  put  in: 

The  clerk  of  the  Committee  on  Military  Af¬ 
fairs. 

The  clerk  of  the  Committe  of  Ways  and 
Means. 

The  Doorkeeper  of  the  House. 

There  were  other  lesser  offices,  but  I  give 
no  time  to  them. 

The  clerk  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means  was  the  now  rather  notorious  James 
P.  Hambleton.  The  place  is  very  important. 
The  clerk  possesses  all  the  secrets  of  this 
most  importanc  committe;  secrets  sometimes 
worth  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  to 
desperate  men  interested  upon  the  subjects 
considered  in  the  committee,  which  reverses 
and  re-arranges  our  tariff  laws  and  all  reve¬ 
nue  laws  at  its  pleasure.  Mr.  Hambleton 
was,  I  think,  forced  upon  the  chairman  of 
the  committee  by  other  influence.  He  had 
been  a  lobbyist- here  for  some  years,  and,  it 
was  charged,  had  been  a  blackmailer  on 
northern  merchants  before  the  war.  But  a 
well-proved  act  of  his  showing  pronounced 
sympathy  with  the  most  lamentable  and 
tragic  act  in  our  history,  the  assassination 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  aroused  the  newspaper 
press  and  particularly  the  New  York  Tribune 
and  my  friend  from  Illinois,  [Mr.  Morri¬ 
son,]  the  chairman  of  the  committee,  remov¬ 
ed  him,  and  removed  him,  I  have  no  doubt, 
willingly  on  learning  all  the  facts..  To  show 
something  of  the  character  of  the  parties,  I 
will  have  read  the  following  from  the  New 
York  Tribune: 

TUHN  BACK  THE  HANDS— MR.  HAMBLETON  DE¬ 
MANDS  PROOFS— A  LETTER  FROM  THE  DEMO¬ 
CRATIC  CLERK  OF  THE  WAYS  AND  MEANS  COM¬ 
MITTEE. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Tribune : 

Sir  :  J udging  from  your  article  of  this  date 
you  seem  determined  not  to  receive  any 
statement  or  explanation  as  satisfactory.  It 
sometimes  happens  that  “  a  man  convinced 
against  his  will  is  of  the  same  opinion  still.” 
In  reply  to  your  first  onslaught  I  authorized 
your  chief  correspondent  in  this  city  to  say 
that  I  never  had  a  child  or  anything  else 
named  “John  Wilkes  Booth.”  That  dis¬ 
patch  appeared  in  the  Tribune  as  my  au¬ 
thorized  statement,  and  the  Tribune  alsot  in 
the  same  issue,  made  editorially  (in  minion 
type)  a  quasi  retraction.  Since  that  date  the 
Tribune  reiterates  the  charge  but  presents 
no  proofs.  I  now  say  for  the  last  time  that 
the  allegation  is  false  and  malicious,  and  if 
the  Tribune  has  or  can  get  any  proof  that  I, 
or  any  member  of  my  family,  ever  named  a 
child  John  Wilkes  Booth,  we  say  give  it  to 
the  public  without  delay.  Who  are  your 
witnesses  and  what  are  they?  It  is  an  easy 
matter  for  an  editor— especially  one  who 
fought  four  years  to  save  the  Union— in  his 


o 


retiracy— glowing  with  patriotic  ardor,  to 
indite  gushing  philippics  over  the  grave  of 
a  dead  infant.  But  it  is  another  thing  to 
produce  facts  that  sustain  such  a  course. 
This  crusade  of  the  anti-democratic  press 
against  the  clerk  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  is  not  only  unfounded  in  truth, 
hut  it  is  partisan  and  malicious,  and  is  the 
smallest  and  most  contemptible  episode  in 
the  history  of  American  Politics.  The  Tri¬ 
bune  has  been  imposed  upon  by  the  envious 
and  the  malignant;  its  patriotic  indignation 
has  been  lashed  into  a  rage  at  the  sight  of  a 
Quaker  gun,  nothing  more,  nothing  less. 

The  Tribune  may  also  be  gratified  to  know 
that  the  clerkship  of  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means  is  a  matter  of  small  consid¬ 
eration  to  its  present  incumbent.  The  clerk 
was  appointed  on  the  sole  recommendation 
of  prominent  democrats  who  had  served 
long  and  faithfully  on  this  committee,  and 
while  the  chairman  is  not  responsible  for 
my  appointment  yet  my  resignation  has  al¬ 
ways  been  subject  to  his  will  and  pleasure. 
Will  the  Tribune  suggest  to  the  chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  ways  and  Means  some 
suitable  gentleman  for  his  clerk,  after  learn¬ 
ing  that  he  has  a  family,  and  what  he  has 
named  his  children?  No  mistakes  should  be 
made.  In  conclusion,  we  ask  the  Tribune  if 
there  is  anything  in  either  of  the  new 
amendments  of  the  Constitution,  the  recon¬ 
struction  acts,  acts  of  Congress,  proclama¬ 
tions,  or  military  orders  that  prohibits  a 
man  from  naming  a  child  anything  he 
chooses?  “We  are  in  our  father’s  house,” 
and  will  never  knowingly  violate  any  law  or 
anything  done  in  pursuance  thereof.  We 
shall  never  invade,  under  any  pretext,  the 
domestic  circlo  or  the  graves  of  innocents. 

JAMES.  P.  H  AMBLE  TON, 
Clerk  of  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means. 
Washington,  D.  C.,  February  187(5. 

P.  S.  If  there  is  any  additional  statement 
you  desire  to  make,  please  prepare  it  and 
inclose  it  to  your  regular  Washington  cor¬ 
respondent,  that  1  may  comply,  if  possible, 
with  your  patriotic  demands.  J.  P.  H. 

MU.  HAMBLETON  ACCOMMODATED. 

[From  the  Washington  Patriot,  Monday 
July  8,  1872. 

DIED. 

Hambleton — At  the  Exchange  Hotel, 
AVasliington,  D.  C.,  on  the  morning  of  July 
3, 1872,  at  10  minutes  past  seven,  of  inflam¬ 
mation  of  the  brain,  John  W.  B.  Hambleton,, 
aged  6  years,  3  months,  and  17  days,  youngest 
son  of  J  ames  P.  and  Martha  L.  Hambleton, 
of  Atlanta,  Ga. 

The  case  of  Doorkeeper  Fitzliugli  is  so  well 
known  that  I  need  not  give  it  much  time. 
He  was  the  “bigger  man”  than  Grant.  He 
had  been  brought  here  before  the  democratic 
caucus  because  he  had  been  either  doorkeeper 
or  sergeant-at-arms  of  the  confederate  house 
of  representatives  during  the  war,  and  that 
was  not  a  claim  to  be  disregarded.  That  was 
a  claim  with  my  friends  on  the  other  side  so 
overtowering  that  it  was  not  asked,  “Is  he 
honest?”  it  was  not  asked,  “Can  he  spell?” 
it  was  not  asked,  “Can  he  write?”  it  was  not 
asked,  “Is  he  fitted  by  attainments  and  ex¬ 
perience  for  this  important  place?”  But  be¬ 
cause  of  his  “war  record,”  I  suppose,  he 
distanced  all  competitors  in  the  caucus. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  As  soon  as  we  found  he 
was  unfitted  for  the  place,  we  dismissed  him. 

Mr.  HALE.  Yes;  he  was  turned  out.  My 
friend  should  not  be  uneasy. 

Mr.  FRYE.  Cannot  the  gentleman  from 
Illinois  be  kept  quiet? 

Mr.  HALE.  But  I  must  come  to  weightier 
matters.  The  House  was  confronted  with  the 
condition  of  the  country.  The  majority  had 
the  country  before  it,  in  whatever  condition 
it  was,  in  whatever  condition  of  depression 


were  all  the  industries  of  the  country,  with 
all  needed  reforms  to  be  set  on  foot.  The 
South  claimed  that  the  whole  republican 
policy  there  was  wrong,  that  grievous  errors 
and  sins  and  crimes  were  the  accompaniments 
of  that  policy,  and  that  a  drastic  change  was 
demanded.  Here  was  an  opening  for  some 
broad  plan  of  legislation  that  the  House  at 
least  might  send  to  the  country.  But  on  the 
day  that  the  House  assembled  we  witnessed 
the  faculty  and  the  power  of  the  democracy 
to  grapple  with  a  great  subject;  for  it  was  de¬ 
liberately  proposed  here  upon  the  question  of 
swearing  in  a  member  of  this  House  to  open 
what  is  one  of  the  wisest  things  in  the  record 
of  the  republican  party,  the  adjustment  of 
the  Lousiana  difficulties — the  Wheeler  com¬ 
promise — which  had  given  to  New  Orleans 
and  the  State  of  Louisiana  a  peace  which  she 
had  not  known  for  years.  I  am  glad  to  say 
that  my  almost  always  wise  friend  from  Indi¬ 
ana  [Mr.  Holman]  was  not  in  accord  with  the 
movement  and  opposed  it.  But  it  was  urged 
by  almost  all  the  leaders  of  his  party  that  this 
beneficent  measure  of  settlement  should  be 
thrown  open,  and  it  was  voted  down  only  by  the 
solid  strength  of  this  side  of  the  House,  with 
the  careful  and  moderate  men,  few  in  num¬ 
ber,  on  the  other  side  under  the  lead  of  Mr. 
Holman.  So  disastrous  was  that  experi¬ 
ment,  so  pronounced  was  the  defeat,  that  from 
that  day  to  this  there  has  been  no  plan  nor 
suggestion  as  to  southern  measures  reported 
from  any  committee  that  I  have  ever  heard  of. 

Other  questions  confronted  us.  The  ques¬ 
tion  of  finance  was  upon  every  man’s  mind, 
and  almost  upon  every  man’s  tongue. 

American  commerce,  Mr.  Speaker,  it  was 
claimed  upon  that  side,  languished,  as  it  un¬ 
doubtedly  does  languish,  largely  from  causes 
that  are  world-wide,  and  not  influenced  by 
legislation  in  this  Hall.  But  it  was  claimed 
there  that  it  languished  because  it  suffocated 
in  the  grasp  of  an  incompetent  party;  and 
the  country  looked  to  see  what  measure  would 
be  attempted  by  the  dominant  party  in  this 
House  upon  that  great  interest .  The  questions, 
too,  of  currency — its  uses,  its  medium,  its 
kind,  its  limitation — were  all  beforb  the  House 
when  it  assembled. 

The  House  left  all  of  these  questions.  It 
trod  them  under  foot.  It  ignored  them  as  of 
little  account  or  confessed  its  incompetency 
by  refusing  to  deal  with  them,  and  embarked 
in  a  wild  crusade  of  investigation.  Now  here 
with  a  party  in  power  during  four  presidential 
terms  there  was  an  opportunity  undoubtedly 
for  some  good  to  be  done.  It  was  by  no 
means  new  ground.  No  republican  Congress 
had  for  the  last  ten  years  failed  to  investigate 
when  real  evils  appeared  and  to  censure  and 
punish  both  friend  and  foe  alike.  But  there 
was  yet  some  opportunity  for  improvement, 
and  when  the  crusade  was  started  the  country 
looked  for  some  good  out  of  the  effort. 

But,  Mr.  Speaker,  while  the  House  sent 
thirty-three  committees  into  investigating 
duties,  which  monopolized  their  time  and 
drove  out  all  other  subjects,  yet  the  method 
and  manner  was  such  that  from  the  begin¬ 
ning  the  whole  movement  was  paralyzed. 
Then  first  was  adopted  as  the  almost  un¬ 
varying  policy — I  believe  the  Committte  on 
Ways  and  Means  was  the  only  exception  at 
first — what  had  only  been  in  rare  cases  ever 
attempted  before,  the  sitting  of  these  com- 


6 


mittees  in  secret;  investigations  conducted 
with  closed  doors.  Parties  who  were  investi¬ 
gated  found,  months  after  secret  investiga¬ 
tion  had  been  set  afoot,  for  the  first  time  that 
they  were  under  accusation.  The  minority 
members  of  the  different  committees  had  the 
padlock  of  secrecy  put  upon  them,  because  of 
a  false  notion  of  the  honor  due  to  the  com¬ 
mittee  by  them  as  members. 

Secret  meetings  of  the  members  of  the 
majority  upon  the  committees  were  frequently 
held,  and  one  result  of  all  this  was  that  when 
any  facts  were  brought  out  that  affected 
any  prominent  member  of  the  party  of  the 
majority  in  the  House  the  investigation  was 
suppressed.  No  committee  cared  to  follow 
up  the  claim  of  the  Kentucky  Railroad  which 
had  been  forced  through  one  of  the  Depart¬ 
ments  when  it  was  learned  that  a  leading 
democratic  aspirant  for  the  Presidency  was 
implicated.  When  it  found  that  John  Roach 
had  contributed  money  to  the  election  of  a 
democratic  member  upon  this  floor  no  atten¬ 
tion  was  called  to  it.  When  Contractor  Swift 
told  the  committee  that  his  largest  contribu¬ 
tion  had  been  in  aid  of  democratic  elections 
the  committee  felt  that  they  had  heard 
enough.  And  Mr.  Commissioner  Davenport 
opened  up  the  condition  of  the  elections  in  New 
York  City  under  democratic  rule  so  effectu¬ 
ally  that  another  committee,  like  the  Cali¬ 
fornia  hunter,  drew  off  from  the  trail  because 
“it  was  getting  altogether  too  fresh. ”  But 
whenever  any  slur  could  be  put  upon  the 
hitherto  fair  reputation  of  a  prominent  re¬ 
publican  the  committees  were  eager  and 
anxious  to  bring  it  forth. 

Let  me  give  an  instance  or  two  of  these  in¬ 
vestigations  and  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
democratic  party  conducted  them.  It  has 
been  the  party  that  heretofore  has  set  up 
loud  claims  of  devotion  to  the  individual  and 
private  rights  of  the  citizen.  One  of  the  first 
things  that  one  of  the  committees  of  this 
House  did  under  the  general  authority  given 
it  to  investigate  everything  was  to  send  to  the 
paper-mills  where  a  mass  of  telegrams  from 
the  telegraph  offices  had  been  sent  and  to  se¬ 
cure  them  for  the  use  of  the  committee. 
Why,  Mr.  Speaker,  one  cause  of  the  success 
of  the  electric  telegraph  has  been  the  fidelity 
of  its  employees  to  the  citizen  who  commits 
his  most  secret  communications  to  the  com¬ 
panies.  This  confidence  is  a  thing  that  rami¬ 
fies  all  business  and  social  life.  But  the  in¬ 
vestigating  committees  of  this  House  broke 
through  all  that,  seized  the  dispatches,  and 
spent  their  time  searching  for  private  mes¬ 
sages  that  had  been  brought  from  the  vats  of 
the  paper-makers. 

Why,  Mr.  Speaker,  the  secrets  captured, 
the  information  there  gained,  these  commit¬ 
tees  had  no  more  right  to,  as  a  matter  of  prop¬ 
erty,  than  they  have  to  a  gentleman’s  purse. 
They  gained  them  in  no  better  way  than  if 
they  had  stolen  into  a  gentleman’s  house  and 
had  hidden  behind  his  door  or  under  his  bed, 
and  had  listened  to  all  the  confidences  and 
secrecies  of  his  household.  Let  me  give  an 
instance  of  the  craze  that  followed  this  hunt¬ 
ing  up  of  private  records.  A  Cabinet  minis¬ 
ter,  whose  wife  was  at  the  seaside,  received  a 
dispatch  something  like  this :  “Arrived  safely; 
baby  well.  You  must  decide  about  the  cook.” 
To  the  committee  this  was  a  vastly  myste¬ 
rious  dispatch,  and  the  Cabinet  minister  re¬ 


ceived  from  the  chairman  of  the  investigating 
committee  a  curt  note,  copying  the  dispatch 
and  calling  upon  him  to  furnish  the  cipher 
for  its  interpretation.  Think  of  the  gross 
maladministration  [laughter]  concealed  un¬ 
der  this  dispatch,  and  how  the  chairman  of 
the  committee  must  have  racked  his  brain  to 
gather  its  true  and  hidden  meaning. 

Can  any  craze  go  further  than  this  ?  Wby, 
sir,  the  famous  absurdity  of  Sergeant  Buzz- 
Fuzz — “Mutton  Chops  and  Tomato  Sauce” — 
is  common  sense  compared  with  this  commit¬ 
tee  investigating  a  Department  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment.  , 

But  we  have  gone  on  far  enough  to  ascer¬ 
tain  that  one  result  followed  from  all  this. 
It  was  a  thing  that  my  friends  on  the  other 
side  hated  to  look  in  the  face  at  first,  hated 
to  provide  for  in  appropriation  bills.  But  it 
soon  became  evident  that  the  bills  for  all  this 
had  to  be  paid.  The  city  of  Washington  was 
full  of  men  who  had  been  summoned  here  as 
witnesses  from  every  corner  in  the  land,  some 
of  whom  wanted  to  testify  and  return  to  their 
homes,  while  others  preferred  to  wait  while 
their  fee-bills  rolled  up.  The  Sergeant-at- 
Arms  had  sent  his  messengers  out  in  all  di¬ 
rections.  The  Government  Printing  Office 
had  from  the  beginning  a  surfeit  of  matter 
thrust  upon  it  for  printing.  The  committees 
had  to  be  given  clerks,  and  their  salaries  had 
to  be  raised.  This  very  day,  on  a  report  from 
the  Committee  on  Accounts,  the  salary  of  the 
clerk  of  one  of  these  committees  was  raised. 

Now,  I  wonder  if  gentlemen  know,  with  all 
their  claim  of  economy,  how  they  have  illus¬ 
trated  it  in  this  House,  where  they  have  had 
full  swing.  I  had  the  figures  made  up  for  me 
four  days  ago,  and  I  found  that  there  were 
then  thirty-three  clerks  of  committees  of  this 
House  under  pay,  while  never  in  the  time  of 
republican  administration  were  there  ever 
more  than  twenty-nine.  And  since  that  list 
was  made  up  for  me  two  more  have  been 
added. 

The  democratic  party  has  been,  and  is  now, 
running  the  most  expensive  session  of  Con¬ 
gress  that  the  American  Republic  has  ever 
seen.  I  have  here  a  list  of  a  few  of  the  items 
of  expense  in  some  of  the  committees,  only 
including  fees,  mileage,  and  per  diem  pay  of 
witnesses.  It  is  only  a  small  part  of  the  in¬ 
vestigating  bills: 

Ways  and  Means,  $307.60;  Pacific  Railroad, 
$132.90  ;  Commerce,  $259.16;  Post  Offices  and 
Post  Roads,  $2,381.21 ;  District  of  Columbia, 
$1,472.90;  Judiciary,  $4,174.28;  Indian  Affairs, 
$5,801.50  ;  Military  Affairs,  $290.10  ;  Naval  Af¬ 
fairs,  $5,602.17  ;  Foreign  Affairs,  $669.87  ;  In¬ 
valid  Pensions,  $81.70;  Public  Buildings  and 
Grounds,  $286.10;  Printing,  $928,74.  Expendi¬ 
tures  :  State  Department,  $325.47  ;  Treasury 
Department,  $2,081.07 ;  War  Department, 
$8,203,74;  Navy  Department,  $535.98 ;  Post  Of¬ 
fice  Department,  $936.60 ;  Interior  Depart¬ 
ment,  $4,509.58;  Public  Buildings,  $45.86  ;  De- 
partment  of  Justice,  $1,788,74;  Reform  in 
Civil  Service,  $2,650.05;  Rules,  $10.00.  Select 
committees:  Texas  Frontier,  $1,410.72;  Freed¬ 
man’s  Bank,  $1,027.29 ;  Real  Estate  Pool, 
$1,377.39  ;  Whisky  Frauds,  $3,261.15 ;  Federal 
Offices  in  Louisiana,  $9,000.00;  Charges  against 
Judge  Wylie,  $218.9o ;  Charges  against  Clerk 
Adams,  $16.00 ;  Impeachment  of  Belknap, 
$316.90.  Total,  $60,104.66. 

It  does  not  include  any  of  the  largest  items 
of  these  expenditures;  it  does  not  include  any¬ 
thing  for  printing  the  testimony.  It  includes 
nothing  for  stenographers,  clerks,  stationery. 
It  undoubtedly  does  not  cover  one-tenth  part 


7 


of  the  additional  expenditures  imposed  on  the 
country  by  the  action  of  this  House. 

Why,  sir,  ordinarily  we  employ  but  two 
stenographers  to  report  for  our  committees. 
We  have  paid  this  session  (I  counted  them  up 
the  other  day)  seventeen.  The  appropriation 
bill  for  the  sundry  civil  expenses  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  has  several  pages  decorated  with 
items  to  pay  for  services  upon  these  commit¬ 
tees.  I  venture  to  say,  and  I  measui'b  my 
words,  that  the  additional  expenses  of  this 
House  over  and  above  the  ordinary  expenses 
of  years  immediately  preceding,  when  they 
are  all  in  for  the  entire  session,  will  aggre¬ 
gate  in  the  neighborhood  of  81,000,000.  A 
very  large  item  of  this  is  of  course  the  print¬ 
ing,  the  cost  of  which  cannot  now  be  told. 

Had  great  results  bten  reached  all  this 
money  might  be  well  afforded.  But  setting 
aside  the  result  of  the  War  Department  in¬ 
vestigation  where  Republicans  contributed  to 
the  end  as  freely  as  Democrats,  the  outcome 
of  the  investigation  is  a  mass  of  partisan  re¬ 
ports  to  be  used  for  campaign  purposes,  and 
while  no  money  of  the  Government  is  shown 
to  have  been  stolen  by  officials,  it  is  proved 
that  the  defalcations  and  losses  are  smaller 
than  at  any  period  in  our  history. 

The  democratic  party  claims,  and  that  is 
about  all  that  is  left  to  it  out  of  this  session, 
that  it  has  reduced  the  general  expenditures 
-of  the  Government.  Now  that  is,  if  true,  a 
claim  that  should  be  admitted,  and  our  friends 
•  on  the  other  side  should  be  given  due  credit. 
I  wish  that  I  had  more  time  to  give  than  I 
have  now;  but  I  cannot  pass  it  by  without 
noticing  it,  although  my  hour  is  waning. 

Now,  what  does  that  claim  amount  to  in 
truth?  Reckoning  from  the  last  year’s  appro¬ 
priations,  the  reductions  made  in  the  appro¬ 
priation  bills  of  this  session,  when  it  shall 
have  drawn  its  long  length  to  an  end,  will 
perhaps  amount  to  not  far  from  825,000,000.' 
To  do  this  the  consular  system  has  been  put 
in  peril,  the  Navy  and  the  Army  have  been 
put  upon  short  rations,  laborers  upon  Govern¬ 
ment  works  have  been  cut  off,  and  small 
salaries  have  been  reduced.  In  a  few  days 
almost  a  thousand  helpless  men  and  women 
in  Washington  will  be  turned  upon  the  streets. 

Now  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  and 
my  friend  the  chairman  of  that  committee 
[Mr.  Randall]  will  claim  that  I  have  ad¬ 
mitted  that  the  democratic  party  in  this 
House  has  reduced  the  people’s  burdens  by 
the  amount  of  $25,000,000.  Sir,  I  do  no  such 
thing.  I  start  with  this  as  my  cardinal  propo¬ 
sition;  no  man  can  tell  what  credit  should  be 
given  to  this  House  of  Representatives  until 
the  closing  day  of  its  term  on  the  4th  day  of 
March,  1877.  It  is  no  new  thing  that  the 
good  which  has  been  done  in  the  first  session 
of  a  Congress  has  been  been  undone  in  its 
second  session. 

The  American  people  will  wait  before  this 
House  is  given  credit  for  a  reduction  of  $25,- 
000,000  in  expenditures  until  it  sees  the  wan¬ 
ing,  dying  days  of  this  Congress;  so  first,  as 
entering  into  this  discussion  of  the  actual 
amount  of  appropriations,  are  all  the  subjects 
of  appropriation  that  have  been  postponed. 
There  have  been  some  reductions,  some  ad¬ 
visable,  desirable  reductions,  which  I  am 
glad  that  I  have  helped  to  make.  But  when 
it  is  found  how  much  of  this  $25,000,000  is 
simply  a  postponement  of  needed  and  neces¬ 


sary  expenditures,  then  some  correct  rule  can 
be  adopted  in  awarding  credit  to  this  House. 

But  there  is  another  matter  that  will  have 
to  be  considered;  not  in  this  session,  but  in 
the  next,  in  order  to  determine  the  question 
of  what  this  House  shall  have  credit  for.  I 
refer  to  the  immense  mass  of  southern 
claims,  private  and  public,  that  are  lodged  in 
the  committee  rooms  of  this  House,  as  my 
friend  from  Ohio  [Mr.  Garfield]  said  the 
other  day,  to  be  launched  upon  this  House 
after  the  elections. 

My  friend  from  Mississippi,  [Mr.  Single- 
ton,]  a  member,  along  with  myself,  of  the 
Committee  on  Appropriations,  brought  out 
in  the  early  part  of  the  session,  in  a  colloquy 
upon  this  floor,  what  was  intended  upon  that 
side  of  the  House.  It  covered  the  Southern 
Pacific  Railroad  and  the  levees  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  ;  and  he  only  fought  shy,  on  monition  from 
wiser  members  of  his  party,  when  I  taxed  him 
with  complicity  in  the  scheme  for  having  the 
cotton  tax  refunded  out  of  the  Treasury. 

Mr.  SINGLETON.  Will  the  gentleman 
allow  me  a  single  word  ? 

Mr.  HALE.  I  cannot  yield  now,  because  I 
have  so  little  time.  The  gentleman  will  have 
ample  opportunity  for  reply, 

Mr.  SINGLETON.  I  only  want  to  say - 

Mr.  HALE.  I  cannot  yield.  I  will  put  into 
my  speech  the  colloquy  with  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  as  it  appears  in  the  Record , 
so  that  the  gentleman  shall  not  be  misquoted: 
[From  the  Congressional  Record, Feb.  4,1876".] 

Mr.  Singleton.  *  *  \  Now,  sir,  let  us 
be  done  with  this.  I  came  here  as  your 
brother;  I  came  here  as  your  friend;  I  came 
here  with  the  purpose  of  promoting  the  in¬ 
terests  of  my  own  people  and  yours.  I  shall 
strive  in  all  my  acts  to  build  up  the  ruined 
South.  I  want  you  before  this  Congress  ad¬ 
journs  to  assist  me  in  two  or  three  schemes 
directed  to  that  end,  which  I  believe  you 
will  do,  because  your  own  interests  impera¬ 
tively  demand  such  a  course.  I  want  to  build 
up  the  Mississippi  levees  and  reclaim  its  al¬ 
luvial  soil,  which  will  prove  a  more  fruitful 
source  of  wealth  to  the  United  States  than 
the  Black  Hills  of  the  Territories  or  the 
mines  of  California,  because  it  is  from  this 
•inexhaustible  soil  of  the  delta  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  River  that  we  can  raise  7,000,000  bales  of 
cotton  a  year  if  properly  protected  from 
overfloAv.  We  expect  to  ask  a  small  sum  for 
this  work  that  will  develop  this  alluvial 
basin  and  enable  us  to  purchase  from  you 
the  goods  we  formerly  purchased  and  con¬ 
tribute  largely  to  the  expenses  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment. 

Mr.  Hale.  Will  the  gentleman  state  what 
the  other  schemes  are  that  people  desire  ? 

Mr.  Singleton.  I  will.  I  am  not  afraid  to 
tell  it  anywhere.  Another  one  is  a  Pacific 
railroad. 

Mr.  Hale.  The  Southern  Pacific  railroad? 

Mr.  Singleton.  Yes;  and  then  again  I  want 
the  jetty  system  carried  out  at  New  Orleans 
which  promises  to  admit  vessels  of  the  larg¬ 
est  tonnage  up  to  the  wharves  in  that  city. 
And  if  we  can  get  these  things  accomplished 
you  will  find  the  South  blossoming  like  the 
rose.  You  will  find  sources  of  wealth  to  you 
and  the  whole  country  that  you  never 
dreamed  of. 

Mr.  Hale.  Is  not  the  refunding  of  the  cot¬ 
ton  tax  another  object  which  the  gentleman 
desires? 

Mr.  Singleton.  Well,  I  do  not  propose  to 
discuss  that  now.  When  the  proposition 
comes  before  the  House  I  will  give  my  views 
upon  it. 

Mr.  Willis.  I  would  like  to  suggest  to  the 
gentleman  from  Maine  that  the  democratic 
party  do  not  propose  to  help  the  South  by 
building  a  Pacific  railroad.  The  republican 


8 


party  may  do  so  if  they  feel  disposed;  but, 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  w  e  do  not  intend 
to  indulge  in  any  subsidies,  the  republican 
example  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

Mr.  Hale.  I  wanted  the  gentleman  to  state 
as  a  representative  of  the  southern  democ¬ 
racy  w  hat  the  democratic  party,  of  which  it 
constitutes  a  large  portion,  expect  to  carry 
before  Congress  adjourns.  I  thank  him  for 
the  candor  with  which  he  has  ansvvered  my 
question  and  the  monition  he  has  given  the 
country. 

Mr.  Singleton.  I  stated  that  I  had  three 
schemes  in  view. 

Mr.  Douglas.  X  would  inquire  of  the  gen¬ 
tleman  from  Maine  by  what  authority  he 
says  that  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  is 
the  representative  of  the  southern  democ¬ 
racy  here? 

Mr.  Hale.  I  did  it  because  it  was  not  an 
assumption  on  the  part  of  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi,  for  he  is  not  an  assuming 
man,  but  he  claims  to  state  for  the  southern 
people  as  their  representative,  speaking  dis¬ 
tinctly  for  them,  complaining  of  the  repub- 
lican  party,  that  they  required  certain 
“schemes,”  and  I  use  his  words,  that  the 
South  washed  to  accomplish  before  Congress 
adjourns.  I  wished  to  know  what  they  Avere, 
and  I  thank  the  gentleman  again  for  the  mo¬ 
nition  he  has  given  to  the  country,  and  espe¬ 
cially  does  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi 
represent  the  southern  people,  because  he 
has  been  selected  as  one  of  their  representa¬ 
tives  on  the  Money  Committee  of  the  House. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  here  a  carefully  com¬ 
piled  list  of  southern  claims  now  suspended 
in  the  committees  of  this  House.  They  cover 
every  imaginable  variety  of  subjects  from  a 
claim  for  the  price  of  a  single  mule  up  to  the 
destruction  of  iron  manufactories  that  were 
engaged  in  furnishing  materials  of  Avar  for 
the  rebel  armies.  They  come  from  every 
southern  State  ^nd  almost  every  coqnty  of 
every  southern  State.  There  is  no  member 
from  the  South,  so  far  as  I  knoAV,  Avho  has 
not  introduced  such  claims  here;  and  the  im¬ 
portant  point  is  that  all  these  bills  are  intro¬ 
duced  because  the  member  introducing  them, 
wrhether  he  believes  them  right  or  Avrong,  is 
pushed  and  driven  bjr  his  constituents. 

Mr.  EDEN.  I  Avould  like  to  ask  the  gen¬ 
tleman  a  question  on  this  subject. 

Mr.  HALE.  I  must  decline  to  yield.  Mr. 
Speaker,  Avhen  the  day  comes  that  it  av  ill  be 
safe  to  Arote  for  these  bills,  the  same  influence 
that  has  driven  these  members  will  drrw 
them  to  Arote  for  their  passage.  It  is  an  in- 
evitable  laAv  Avhich  will  dominate  that  side  of 
the  House,  and  after  a  little  Avhile,  when  the 
public  mind  shall  have  become  gradually 
familiarized  with  the  concession,  as  in  the 
old  times  it  did  with  certain  exactions  of  the 
South,  the  northern  democracy  will  become 
acquiescent  and,  provided  the  party  gains 
power,  Avill  consent  to  the  passage  of  these 
bills.  They  aggregate  about  £160,000,000 of 
those  that  are  already  here.  Does  anybody 
believe  that  the  South  has  not  an  interest  in 
these  claims  being  paid  ?  Does  anybody  be¬ 
lieve  that  if  it  has  control  of  the  Government 
through  the  democratic  party  it  will  allow  its 
members  to  rest  day  or  night  on  this  floor 
until  these  bills  are  passed? 

Mr.  LAWRENCE.  And  many  of  these  are 
simply  test  claims,  Avhich  if  alloAved  Avill  be 
followed  by  others  to  a  vast  amount. 

Mr.  HALE.  Of  course,  as  my  friend  from 
Ohio  suggests,  many  of  these  are  simply  rep¬ 
resentative  claims,  and  if  one  passes,  it  in¬ 
volves  the  payment  of  twenty  or  fifty  times 
as  much  more,  which  will  be  covered  by  the 


same  principle.  These  are  only  the  courier, 
the  advance-guard,  the  feeler,  the  skirmisher 
that  is  sent  out  to  feel  the  line,  and  find 
Avhether  it  can  be  broken.  Fi\re  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  Mr.'  Speaker,  will  not 
meet  all  these  claims  v,rhen  we  begin  to  pay 
them. 

Mr.  LAWRENCE.  Five  hundred  million 
dollars  would  not  cover  the  total  amount  of 
these  claims,  without  reference  to  the  claims 
for  emancipated  slaves. 

Mr.  HALE.  Mr.  Speaker,  he  AA'ho  lives 
long  enough — provided  ahvays  that  the 
democratic  party  gets  control  of  all  the 
branches  of  the  Go\Ternment — will  see  Avhat 
I  here  predict  come  to  pass.  If  anjflbody 
doubts,  let  him  wait  and  see  for  himself. 

I  cannot  give  a  full  list  of  their  claims,  be¬ 
cause  it  Avould  occupy  Avhole  pages  of  the 
Record  Here  are  some  of  them : 

One  of  them,  introduced  in  the  Senate  by 
Mr.  Johnston,  of  Virginia,  appropriates 
$199,228.24  to  pay  certain  “loyal”  citizens  of 
Loudoun  County,  Virginia,  two  hundred  and 
six  in  number,  “in  consideration  of  their 
property  destroyed  by  fire  by  the  military 
authority  of  the  United  States  in  conformity 
with  an  order  of  Major  General  Sheridan, 
dated  November  27,  1864.”  This  is  the  fa¬ 
mous  order  in  Avhich  Sheridan,  after  direct¬ 
ing  General  Merritt  to  operate  with  his  di- 
vision  of  cavalry  against  the  guerrillas  in  a 
certain  district  of  country,  says: 

“This  section  has  been  the  hot-bed  of  law¬ 
less  bands  avIio  liaArn  from  time  to  time  dep¬ 
redated  upon  small  parties  on  the  line  of 
army  communication,  on  safeguards  left  at 
houses,  and  on  troops.  Their  real  object  is 
plunder  and  higliAvay  robbery.  To  clear  the 
country  of  these  parties  that  are  bringing 
destruction  upon  the  innocent  as  Avell  as 
their  guilty  supporters  by  their  cowardly 
acts,  you  Avill  consume  anti  destroy  all  for¬ 
age  and  subsistence,  burn  all  barns  and  mills 
and  their  contents,  and  drivu>  off  all  stock. 
This  order  must  be  literally  executed,  bear¬ 
ing  in  mind,  howeA*er.  that  no  dwellings  are 
to  be  burned  and  that  no  personal  A'ioience 
be  offered  the  citizens.  The  ultimate  result 
of  the  guerrilla  system  of  warfare  is  the  to¬ 
tal  destruction  of  all  private  rights  in  the 
country  occupied  by  such  parties.  This  de¬ 
struction  may  as  well  commence  at  once, 
and  the  responsibility  of  it  must  rest  upon 
the  authorities  at  Richmond,  avIio  have  ac¬ 
knowledged  the  legitimacy  of  guerrilla 
bands.” 

By  Mr.  Faulkner,  of  West  Virginia:  A  bill 
to  pay  Abram  II.  Herr  $21,067.51  for  the  use 
of  land  and  buildings  on  the  island  of  Vir- 
ginius,  in  the  Shenandoah  River  at  Harper’s 
Ferry,  by  the  Quartermaster’s  Department, 
from  February  26, 1862,  to  February  1,  1866. 

By  t  he  same  member:  A  bill  to  pay  Wildey 
Lodge,  I.  O.  O.  F.,  of  Cliaidestown,  West  Vir¬ 
ginia,  $3,547.50  for  the  destruction  of  build¬ 
ings,  furniture  and  regalia  by  fire. 

By  the  same  member:  A  bill  to  pay  the 
German  EArangelical  church  of  Martins- 
burgli,  West  Virginia,  $2,500  for  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  the  building  and  furniture  by  fire 
“through  the  carelessness  of  the  military 
forces  of  the  United  States.” 

By  the  same  member:  A  bill  to  pay  Abijalr 
Daily,  of  Grant  county,  West  Virginia,  $2,- 
453.87  for  losses  in  property  sustained  by  him 
during  the  war. 

BAr  Mr.  Reagan,  of  Texas:  A  bill  to  pay  J. 
A.  Warren,  of  Tyler  county,  Texas,  $3,150  for 
eight  mules  and  three  horses  taken  from  him 
by  order  of  General  Laila. 

By  Mr.  Phillips,  of  Missouri:  A  bill  to  pay 
Thomas  Ifiant,  of  BooneA'ille,  Missouri,  $902 
for  boots,  shoes,  leather  and  tools  taken  from 
his  shop  by  United  States  troops. 

By  Mr.  Whitthorne,  of  Tennessee:  A  bill 
to  pay  John  E.  Tulloss  $12,982.04  for  the  burn¬ 
ing  of  his  buildings  and  destruction  of  prop- 


9 


erty  near  Franklin,  Tennessee,  [a  battle 
field]  by  United  States  troops. 

By  Senator  Johnston,  of  Virginia:  A  bill 
to  pay  Peters  &  Keed  $15,170.89,  balances  due 
them  for  labor  and  material  furnished  by 
them  as  contractors  at  the  Norfolk  navy- 
yard  in  1860.  (This  bill  was  passed  by  the 
House  last  session,  but  was  not  reached  in 
season  for  consideration  by  the  Senate.) 

By  Mr.  Htjnton,  of  Virginia:  A  bill  to  pay 
James  Green,  of  Alexandria,  $37,750.  (No 
consideration  mentioned.) 

By  the  same  member:  A  bill  directing  the 
auditing  and  payment  of  the  claim  of  It.  B. 
Hackey  for  carrying  mails  in  1861.  Amount 
not  stated.) 

By  Mr  Whitthorne,  of  Tennessee:.  A  bill 
to  pay  the  officers  and  men  of  the  First  Reg¬ 
iment  and  of  the  Ninth  Battalion  of  Tennes¬ 
see  Cavalry*  Confederate  States  army,  for 
their  horses  which,  by  the  terms  of  surren¬ 
der  to  General  Sherman  in  North  Carolina, 
they  were  allowed  to  retain,  but  were  taken 
from  them  on  their  way  home,  at  Strawberry 
Plains,  Tennessee,  by  General  Stoneman. 

By  the  same  member:  A  bill  to  pay  $42,271.- 
34  to  certain  mail  contractors  in  Tennessee 
for  services  up  to  June  8, 1861.  [A  claim  long 
pending.]  The  second  section  of  this  bill 
contains  the  following  sweeping  provision  : 
“  That  all  laws  conflicting  Avith  the  payment 
of  these  claims,  and  which  payment  is  hereby 
directed  to  be  made,  be,  and  the  same  are 
hereby,  repealed.” 

By  Sir.  House,  of  Tennessee:  A  bill  to  pay 
James  M.  Hinton,  of  Davidson  county,  Ten¬ 
nessee,  $2,508  for  “  board  and  so  forth  ”  of  cer¬ 
tain  colored  men  avIio  Avere  taken  from  his 
custody  when  sheriff,  and  employed  on  the 
fortifications  of  the  Federal  Army  near  Nash¬ 
ville,  in  1862. 

By  Mr.  Atkins,  of  Tennessee:  A  bill  to  pay 
$13,000  to  Bethel  College,  Tennessee,  for  occu- 

Bation  of  and  injury  done  to  the  college 
uildings  and  property  by  Federal  troops. 

It  is  noticeable  that  in  only  tAvo  out  of  the 
tAventy-lWe  cases  is  it  even  claimed  that  the 
parties  interested  Avere  loyal  citizens  during 
the  war. 

Next  comes  an  exceedingly  important  class 
of  bills— those  relating  to  cotton  claims,  of 
Avhich  five  have  been  introduced.  First  is 
the  old  bill  to  refund  the  taxes  on  raw  cot¬ 
ton,  involving  an  appropriation  of  $68,072,- 
388.79. 

Four  bills  have  been  introduced— one  by 
Senator  Mkrrimon,  of  North  Carolina,  tAvo 
by  Mr.  Vance,  of  North  Carolina,  and  one  by 
Mr.  Hancock,  of  Texas— restoring  to  the  pen¬ 
sion  rolls  all  persons  Avliose  names  Avere 
stricken  therefrom  for  disloyaltv,  under  the 
act  of  February  4, 1862.  One  of ‘Mr.  Vance’s 
bills  goes  much  further,  and  repeals  not  only 
the  act  of  February  4,  1862,  but  the  statute 
prohibiting  the  payment  of  claims  of  dis¬ 
loyal  persons  [section  3480,  Revised  Statutes] 
“ancZ  all  other  laws  of  similar  character  and 
purport."  In  the  same  bills  occurs  the  re¬ 
markable  phrase,  “  the  Avar  betAveen  the 
States,  generally  called  the  rebellion.”  If 
it  was  simply  a  war  “betAveen  the  States,” 
by  Avhat  rule  of  law  or  logic  can  the  United 
States  be  held  liable  to  pay  such  claims 
as  Vance’s  bill  proposes  to  admit;  to  re¬ 
peal  the  statute  prohibiting  certain  pay¬ 
ments  to  disloyal  persons;  to  restore  to  the 
1812  pension  roll  the  names  of  persons  stricken 
ofi'  for  disloyalty;  and  for  the  relief  of  owners 
and  puchasers  of  lands  sold  for  direct  taxes 
in  insurrectionary  States?  The  most  im¬ 
portant  among  the  more  recent  measures 
proposed  is  a  bill  introduced  by  John  Ran¬ 
dolph  Tucker  to  repeal  the  section  of  the 
Revised  Statutes  Avhich  prohibits  the  ap¬ 
pointment  to  any  position  in  the  Army 
of  persons  who  have  served  in  any  capac¬ 
ity  m  the  military,  naval,  or  civil  service  of 
the  confederate  government  or  of  any  of  the 
States  in  insurrection. 

I  select  these  as  my  eye  runs  hurridly  doAvn 
the  long  list.  It  is  a  fearful  account  that 


these  gentlemen  mean  that  Ave  shall  settle 
some  day. 

In  looking  o\rer  the  record  of  this  session, 
I  discover  many  things  in  Avhich  the  party  in 
poAver  here  has  departed  from  its  old  tradi¬ 
tions  and  principles.  It  stood  for  years  as 
the  advocate  of  the  rights  of  the  citizen,  as 
the  defender  of  the  poAvers  of  the  courts,  the 
sanctity  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corp>us.  But 
this  winter,  Avith  poAver  unbridled  and  uncon¬ 
trolled,  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  has  been 
cast  into  contempt  and  the  adjudication  of  a 
high  court  has  been  disputed  and  sought  to 
be  nullified. 

Mr.  Hallet  Kilbourn,  of  Avhom  I  knoAv  noth¬ 
ing  except  that  he  is  an  American  citizen, 
came  into  conflict  Avith  one  of  the  investiga¬ 
ting  committees  upon  some  question  as  to 
disclosing  names  and  producing  private  books 
and  papers.  He  Avas  committed  for  contempt 
by  the  order  of  this  House,  and  resorted,  as 
any  citizen  may  do,  to  the  intervention  of  the 
courts.  The  House  disputed  evTery  step  and 
employed  counsel  to  represent  it.  Both  upon 
the  return  and  upon  the  final  question  of  dis¬ 
charge  under  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  which 
had  been  iirvoked  the  petitioner  was  sustained 
and  released.  It  had  been  a  fair  trial  and  the 
House  had  been  beaten.  But  Mr.  Kilbourn, 
having  established  the  strength  of  the  pro¬ 
cess  and  having  no  desire  to  withhold  proper 
testimony,  then  communicated  to  the  House 
his  Avillingness  to  testify,  and  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  [Mr.  Wells]  sought  to 
bring  him  before  the  proper  committee  with 
the  result  shOAvn  by  this  extract  from  the 
report  of  proceedings  in  the  House  of  Repre¬ 
sentatives,  May  2, 1876. 

HALLET  KILBOURN. 

Mr.  Wells,  of  Mississippi.  I  ask  unanimous 
consent  to  offer  the  folloAving  resolution: 

“ Resolved ,  That  the  Committee  on  the  Real- 
Estate  Pool  be  directed  to  accept  the  offer 
of  Hallet  Kilbourn  to  appear  before  that 
committee  to  answer  any  inquiries  relating 
to  such  real-estate  pool  and  to  furnish  such 
information  to  said  committee  as  the  books 
in  his  possession  may  contain,  and  the  said 
committee  are  directed  to  examine  said  Hal¬ 
let  Kilbourn  and  his  books.” 

Mr.  Randall.  I  move  that  that  resolution 
be  laid  on  the  table;  that  is  the  right  way  to 
treat  it. 

Mr.  Wells,  of  Mississippi.  I  call  for  the 
yeas  and  nays  on  that  motion. 

Mr.  Holman.  I  rise  to  a  question  of  order.  I 
did  not  yield  the  floor  for  the  purpose  of  the 
introduction  of  anything  for  action.  The 
gentleman  from  Mississippi  [Mr.  Wells]  did 
not  certainly  understand  that  I  yielded  the 
floor  when  about  to  make  a  motion  to  go  into 
Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  state  of  the 
Union  on  the  appropriation  bill,  to  allow  him  * 
to  have  the  yeas  and  nays  on  a  proposition 
like  this. 

Mr.  "Wells,  of  Mississippi.  The  point  of  or¬ 
der  comes  certainly  too  late. 

The  Speaker  pro  tempore.  The  gentleman 
from  Indiana  did  not  make  his  objection  in 
time. 

Mr.  Holman.  The  gentleman  from  Mississ¬ 
ippi  certainly  understood  that  I  yielded  the 
floor  simply  for  the  introduction  of  measures 
for  reference,  and  not  for  action. 

Mr.  Wells,  of  Mississippi.  I  understood 
that  I  had  the  floor  to  offer  the  resolution.  I 
did  offer  it,  and  a  motion  has  been  made  to 
lay  it  on  the  table,  and  on  that  question  the 
yeas  and  nays  are  demanded. 

The  yeas  and  nays  Avere  ordered. 

Mr.  Randall.  The  right  Avay  to  treat  it  is 
to  treat  it  with  contempt. 

[Cries  of  “Regular  order !”] 


10 


The  Speaker  pro  tempore.  The  regular  or¬ 
der  is  the  call  of  the  roll. 

Mr.  Landers,  of  Indiana.  1  want  to  make 
an  inquiry  of  the  Chair.  Can  this  resolution 
come  before  this  body  without  unanimous 
consent  ? 

The  Speaker  pro  tempore.  The  Chair  un¬ 
derstood  that  unanimous  consent  was  given, 
because  no  one  objected  when  he  put  the 
question,  and  the  Chair  put  the  question  dis¬ 
tinctly  to  the  House, 

Mr.  Blount.  The  gentleman  from  Indiana 
[Mr.  Holman]  objected.  I  heard  him. 

Mr.  Holman.  1  tried  to  object. 

The  Speaker  pro  tempore.  The  Chair  did 
not  hear  the  gentleman,  although  he  was 
waiting  for  objections. 

[Cries  of  “  Regular  order !”] 

The  question  was  taken  on  Mr.  Randall’s 
motion;  and  there  were— yeas  138,  nays  84,  not 
voting  68;  as  follows: 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  might  cite  instance  after  in¬ 
stance  where  the  dominant  party  here  has 
sought  to  override  rights  heretofore  respected 
and  unquestioned.  It  has  conducted  its  in¬ 
vestigations  in  secret,  and  has  ordered  the 
h  ead  of  a  Department  to  communicate  all 
facts  known  to  him,  without  regard  to  the  im¬ 
portance  of  secrecy  in  detective  operations 
against  knaves  and  thieves.  It  has  demanded 
the  custody  of  departmental  papers,  some¬ 
times  if  given  up  to  be  put  in  charge  of  dis¬ 
charged  incompetent  employees  who  had  been 
adopted  by  the  committees  as  clerks  or  mes¬ 
senger.  In  its  demands  upon  Cabinet  min¬ 
isters  and  their  subordinates  it  has  been  ex¬ 
acting,  imperious,  and  not  infrequently  rude 
and  insolent.  I  commend  to  its  consideration 
the  letter  of  President  Jackson  to  Henry  S. 
Foote,  formerly  chairman  of  the  committee 
to  investigate  general  charges  of  abuse  against 
the  executive  department  as  applicable  to  the 
present  methods  of  democratic  inquiries.  The 
following  sentences  will  indicate  its  character: 

The  heads  of  Deparments  may  answer  such 
requests  as  they  please,  provided  they  do 
not  withhold  their  own  time  and  that  of  the 
officers  under  their  direction  from  public 
business  to  the  injury  thereof  to  that  busi¬ 
ness.  I  shall  direct  them  to  devote  them¬ 
selves  to  their  duties  in  preference  to  any 
illegal  and  unconstitutional  call  for  infor¬ 
mation,  no  matter  from  what  source  it  may 
come,  and  however  anxious  they  may  be  to 
meet  it.  For  myself,  I  shall  repel  all  such 
attempts  as  an  invasion  of  the  principles  of 
justice  as  well  as  of  the  Constitution,  and  I 
shall  esteem  it  my  sacred  duty  to  the  people 
of  the  United  States  to  resist  them  as  I  would 
the  establishment  of  a  Spanish  inquisition. 
If,  after  all  the  severe  accusations  contained 
in  various  speeches  of  yourself  and  your  as¬ 
sociates,  you  are  unwilling  of  your  own  ac¬ 
cord  to  bring  specfic  charges,  then  I  request 
your  committee  to  call  yourself  and  your  as¬ 
sociates  and  every  other  member  of  Congress 
who  made  general  charge  of  corruption  to 
testify  before  God  and  the  country  whether 
you  or  they  knew  of  any  specfic  corruption 
or  abuse  of  trust  in  the  Executive  Depart¬ 
ments,  and,  if  so,  what  it  was.  If  you  are 


able  to  point  to  any  case  where  there  is  the 
slightest  reason  to  suspect  corruption  and 
abuse  of  trust,  no  obstacle  which  I  can  re¬ 
move  shall  be  interposed  to  prevent  the  full¬ 
est  scrutiny  by  all  legal  means.  The  offices 
of  all  the  Departments  will  be  opened  to 
you,  and  every  facility  furnished  for  this 
purpose.  I  shall,  on  the  one  hand,  cause 
every  possible  facility  consistent  with  law 
and  justice  to  be  given  to  the  investigation 
of  speclic,  tangible  charges;  and,  on  the 
other,  shall  repudiate  all  attempts  to  invade 
the  just  rights  of  the  Executive  Depart¬ 
ments  and  of  the  individuals  composing  the 
same.  If,  after  all  your  clamor,  you  will 
make  no  specific  charges,  or  bring  no  proof 
of  such  as  are  made,  you  and  your  associates 
must  be  regarded  by  the  good  people  of  the 
United  States  as  the  authors  of  unfounded 
calumnies,  and  the  public  servants  you  have 
assailed  will,  in  the  estimation  of  all  honor¬ 
able  men,  stand  fully  acquitted. 

If  I  had  more  time,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  should 
be  glad  to  go  into  the  account  of  the  repeated 
assaults  made  upon  the  national  credit  in  the 
seven  different  attempts,  under  the  lead  of 
prominent  democrats  upon  this  floor,  to  re¬ 
peal  or  nullify  the  policy  of  an  early  resump¬ 
tion  of  specie  payments,  to  which  this  Ad¬ 
ministration  is  committed.  They  culminated 
on  Saturday  last  in  a  bill  which  repeals  the 
date  fixed  for  resumption  by  the  act  of  J anu- 
ary,  1875;  and  so  much  time  had  already 
been  consumed  in  doing  nothing  for  eight 
long  months  that  to  this  important  measure 
but  two  hours  of  debate  was  allowed,  and  it 
was  then  pushed  through  under  the  lash  of 
the  previous  question. 

In  the  meantime  all  the  material  interests 
of  the  country  are  left  neglected.  A  tariff  bill 
reducing  taxation  has  been  reported,  but  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means  lets  it  sleep  in  the  Committee  of  the 
Whole.  Mr.  Bristow’s  recommendation  for 
refunding  the  national  debt,  by  which  at 
least  $17,000,000  yearly  in  interest  paid  can 
be  saved,  is  passed  by  unheeded.  An  Indian 
war  of  such  magnitude  as  has  not  been  seen 
for  a  generation  breaks  out  at  the  time  when 
the  House  of  Representatives  is  reducing  the 
Army  and  crippling  the  whole  Indian  service, 
The  amendment  to  the  Constitution  offered 
by  my  former  colleague,  [Mr.  Blaine,]  rela¬ 
ting  to  sectarian  schools,  remained  until  in 
the  last  week  it  was  brought  up  and  passed 
without  debate,  no  interchange  of  views  being 
allowed,  because  it  had  been  determined  that 
no  expression  of  hostility  should  be  permit¬ 
ted  from  the  democratic  side  of  the  House. 

The  last  days  of  this  session,  Mr.  Speaker, 
are  upon  us.  Your  party  has  .had  its  day  in 
court.  For  nearly  nine  months  the  American 
people  have  looked  upon  this  body  as  it  has 
drifted  and  hopelessly  struggled  on  with  ele¬ 
ments  in  it  which,  while  useless  for  any  pres¬ 
ent  good,  have  sounded  a  constant  alarm  of 
future  dangers. 


Conditio^  of  the  Country  and  Claims  of  Parties  to  Public  Coijfideijce. 


EXTRACT  FROM  THE  SPEECH 

OF 

HON.  STEPHEN  A.  HUBLBXJT, 

OF  ILLINOIS. 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  SATURDAY,  JULY  29,  1876. 


The  House  being  as  in  Committee  of  the 
Whole  on  the  state  of  the  Union  for  debate 
only— 

Mr.  IIURLBUT  said: 

Mr.  Speaker:  We  are  now  approaching 
the  end  of  this  most  “weary,  stale,  flat,  and 
unprofitable”  session,  and  it  may  not  be  amiss 
to  look  back  before  we  separate  and  review 
the  course  we  have  been  pursuing. 

I  fear,  sir,  we  shall  find  few  fruits  to 
gather,  slight  harvest  in  sound  grain  for  the 
labor  and  time  expended.  But  those  we  rep¬ 
resent  may  take  warning  at  least  by  the 
shortcomings  of  this  Congress,  and  see  to  it 
that  the  public  interests  are  not  again  com¬ 
mitted  into  the  hands  of  a  party  which  has 
been  so  lavish  of  promises  in  advance  and  so 
barren  of  performance  in  the  time  of  trial. 

The  facetious  gentleman  from  New  York 
[Mr.  Cox]  laid  aside  some  weeks  ago  his 
quips  and  jests  and  condescended  to  the 
sphere  of  simple  fact  when,  with  a  sweeping 
gesture  including  all  of  his  own  side  of  the 
House,  he  solemnly  declared  that  “this  is  the 
day  of  small  things.”  The  ludicrous  truth¬ 
fulness  of  the  statement  rendered  his  remark 
an  example  of  the  highest  kind  of  unconscious 
humor,  fit  to  be  reproduced  in  the  next  issue 
of  “Why  We  Laugh.”  The  evidences  were 
all  around  him,  and  especially  in  the  “mas¬ 
terly  inactivity”  of  his  own  committee. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  nearly  two  years  since 
a  great  popular  election  was  held.  Many 
causes  combined  to  bring  about  changes  in 
the  public  mind.  Depression  in  business 
affairs,  stagnation  of  currency,  failures  of 
mercantile  enterprise,  manufacturing  over¬ 
done,  building  of  great  railways  stopped;  all 
these  were  charged  as  due  to  the  policy  and 
practice  of  the  party  in  power.  All  elements 
of  discontent  and  division  naturally  gravi¬ 
tated  to  the  Democratic  party,  the  chronic 
grumblers  of  twenty  years.  Then  there  is 
always  a  considerable  element  which  wearies 
of  anything  continuous  and  uniform,  and 
seeks  change  and  variety  by  natural  appetite, 
and  this  element  is  always  large  in  this  coun¬ 
try,  and  it  is  to  it  that  is  due  the  apparent  im¬ 
possibility  of  any  settled,  continuous,  and  uni¬ 
form  policy. 

These  hosts  were  like  those  that  gathered 
to  David  in  the  cave  of  Adullam. 

The  press  of  the  country  in  many  instances 
devoted  itself  to  the  consideration  of  ephem¬ 
eral  questions,  and  forgot  the  grave  differ¬ 
ences  that  rest,  and  must  always  rest,  on 
eternal  principles  of  right  and  wrong. 

The  Republican  party  was  arraigned  every¬ 
where  before  the  great  tribunal  of  the  people; 


and  in  the  exercise  of  that  broad  license,  which 
the  freedom  of  elections  gives  and  requires, 
it  was  charged  with  all  the  sins  and  short¬ 
comings  of  individual  members;  it  was  alleged 
to  have  outlived  its  usefulness,  to  have  had  its 
day,  to  have  performed  its  purpose,  and  that 
its  paramount  necessity  now  was  to  die  out  ot 
the  way  of  the  newly  reorganized  Democracy, 
whose  mission  it  was  to  cure  all  evils;  to  re¬ 
store  all  waste  places;  to  make  all  citizens 
free,  equal,  and  contented;  to  sweep  out  all 
vice,  public  ahd  private,  and  to  restore  the 
dominion  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws. 

What  promises,  Mr.  Speaker,  from  the 
party  press,  the  party  conventions,  and  at 
the  hustings  !  Promises  are  the  cheapest  of 
all  cheap  currency;  they  cost  nothing  to 
make,  nothing  to  scatter  lavishly  and  broad¬ 
cast  and  as  some  one  says,  “Promises  are 
the  money  of  fools.”  “Let  the  Democrats 
into  power,”  said  they,  “and  the  good 
times  will  come;  official  corruption  shall  be 
stopped;  business  shall  be  revived;  fields 
shall  groan  with  golden  harvests,  foreign 
commerce  be  restored;  internal  transporta¬ 
tion  shall  be  simplified  and  cheapened;  money 
shall  be  solid,  abundant,  and  cheap;  values 
shall  be  restored;  taxes  shall  be  reduced,  re¬ 
trenchment  inaugurated,  and  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  conducted  on  the  soundest  and 
most  economical  plans.  The  South  shall 
groan  no  more;  the  great  problem  of  labor 
and  capital,  the  great  struggle  of  life  and  liber¬ 
ty, still  going  on  in  that  section,  shall  be  harmo¬ 
niously  settled,  and  all  feuds  and  quarrels  of 
race,  citizenship,  or  ownership  of  property 
shall  disappear  under  the  overshadowing  and 
benignant  wings  of  the  new  Democracy.” 
A  real  civil-service  reform  should  be  effect¬ 
ed;  Caesarism,  personal  government,  offices 
as  rewards  for  personal  service,  all  these  and 
all  other  evil  things  should  perish  before  the 
dawn  of  the  new  day. 

These  were  among  the  inducements  held 
out  to  the  people  to  glorify  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century  by  the  ingress  of  a  Demo¬ 
cratic  majority  into  the  House  of  Represen¬ 
tatives,  and  these,  with  not  a  little  of  that 
judicious  violence  which  the  Anglo-Saxon 
deems  himself  privileged  to  use  toward  a 
weaker  people  and  which  was  used  so  far  as 
deemed  necessary  in  more  than  one  State  <Jf 
the  South — these  causes  and  these  means 
brought  the  present  majority  into  this  House. 

Fir§t  and  foremost  among  the  partisan 
cries  was  that  of  universal  corruption  among 
Republican  office-holders.  A  charge  easy  to 
make;  for  general  condemnations  are  the 


12 


currency;  reduced  to  gold  the  amount  Is  a 
little  over  $522,000,000  for  domestic  products, 
and  the  whole  exports  in  gold  value  is  $537,- 
000,000,  showing  an  increase  in  the  total  ex¬ 
ports,  gold  value,  of  about  $24,000,000  over 
those  of  the  previous  fiscal  year,  and  about 
$77,000,000  over  the  imports  ‘of  the  present 
year. 

The  imports  of  specie  in  the  last  fiscal  year 
amounted  to  $15,530,648,  and  the  exports  to 
$69,139,066,  showing  an  excess  of  exports  of 
$53,608,418.  By  adding  this  amount  to  the  ex¬ 
cess  of  merchandise  exported,  namely,  $77.- 
000,000,  the  total  excess  of  exports  of  mer¬ 
chandise  and  specie  over  imports  during  the 
year  is  about  $130,000,000. 

These  figures  are  approximately  accurate 
and  will  probably  be  found  to  vary  not  more 
than  $2,000,000  from  the  correct  ones  when 
the  accounts  for  June  shall  have  been  re¬ 
ceived  and  compiled. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

EDWARD  YOUNG, 
Chief  of  Bureau. 

Hon.  J.  A.  Kasson,  M.  C.,  Washington. 

Thus  the  work  of  preparation  goes  on. 
One  of  the  bankers  before  our  committee,  in 
answer  to  the  suggestion  of  my  honorable 
friend  from  New  York,  testified  that  the 
banks  had  made  already  large  preparations, 
particularly  his  own,  and  said  other  banks  in 
New  York  had  done  the  same.  Your  bank- 
vaults  are  crowded  with  a  surplus  of  paper 
money,  and  you  have  not  allowed  this  Gov¬ 
ernment  to  provide  for  its  redemption  by 
funding  and  cancellation,  evefi  on  the  sole 
condition  that  the  people  themselves  wish  to 
surrender  and  cancel  their  paper  money. 
You  have  refused  the  right  to  the  people, 
which  the  original  act  gave  them,  of  funding 
the  greenbacks,  a  right  which  gave  them  so 
much  value  under  the  funding  act.  And  you 
still  refuse  to  return  that  right  to  them.  Not 
this  side  of  the  House,  but  the  other  has  re¬ 
fused  to  do  that. 

Mr.  WILLIS  rose. 

Mr.  KASSON.  Excuse  me  now.  And  we 
have  proposed  to  reduce  the  expenses  of  the 
public  debt  further.  In  the  Ways  and  Means 
Committee  has  been  pending  for  months  a 
bill  passed  by  the  Senate  enabling  the  Secre¬ 
tary  of  the  Treasury  to  reduce  our  rate  of  in¬ 
terest  from  6  to  4 per  cent.,  and  that  bill  is 
not  reported.  Another  proposition  has  been 
to  reduce  it  to  4  per  cent. — 

Mr.  MORRISON.  Will  the  gentleman  al¬ 
low  me  a  moment  ? 

Mr.  KASSON,  (continuing,)  —  by  the  ex¬ 
tension  of  the  time  of  maturity  as  an  equiva¬ 
lent  for  the  diminution  of  interest,  and  that 
is  not  reported  to  the. House. 

-  Mr.  MORRISON.  Does  not  the  gentleman 
from  Iowa  know  that  the  Treasury  has  at  its 
disposal  now  three  hundred  millions  of  4% 
per  cent,  fifteen-year  bonds;  and  seven  hun¬ 
dred  millions  4  per  cent,  thirty-year  bonds 
undisposed  of? 

Mr.  KASSON.  Precisely;  and  the  Secre¬ 
tary’s  letter  told  the  committee  they  could 
not  be  negotiated,  as  they  needed  some  ten 
years  added  to  the  time  when  they 
matured  as  an  equivalent  for  the  reduction  of 
the  interest,  and  no  report  has  been  made  to 
the  House  on  the  subject.  Ah,  does  it  lie  in 
the  mouths  of  the  opponents  of  specie  re¬ 
sumption  to  say  the  fault  rests  with  the  re¬ 
publicans,  and  we  cannot  resume  in  1879  with 
the  measures  they  can  yet  submit  for  our 
action  prior  to  that  time?  • 

Sir,  I  care  nothing  for  that  identical  day. 


The  2d  of  J anauary  is  as  good  as  the  1st  to 
me;  and  the  25th  of  December  prior  to  the 
1st  as  good  as  the  1st  of  January.  There  is 
no  cabalistic  effect  in  the  1st  day  of  January. 
But  the  significance,  the  dangerous  signifi¬ 
cance — and  no  man  knows  it  better  than  Gov¬ 
ernor  Tilden — of  this  proposition  is  that  it 
leaves  no  port  to  sail  to  and  no  time  at  which 
your  arrival  shall  be  expected. 

Mr.  GARFIELD.  And  no  promise. 

Mr.  KASSON.  As  that  distinguished  poli¬ 
tician  stated  in  his  letter  laid  upon  our  desk 
this  morning,  “with  a  good  pilot  at  the  helm — 

S.  J.  T.,  to  wit — if  you  start  on  a  voyage  for 
Liverpool  you  are  sure  to  arrive  there.”  But 
he  is  taking  Liverpool  out  of  the  resumption 
act,  and  proposes  to  make  a  voyage  only  “for 
Cowes  and  a  market.”  [Laughter.] 

Mr.  Speaker,  his  letter  and  the  claims  se 
up  by  his  friends  of  being  honestly  devoted  to 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments  have  yet 
to  be  canvassed  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  The  platform  is  an  evasion.  A  large 
party  in  this  country  demands  the  entire  re¬ 
peal  of  the  resumption  act  and  want  no  re¬ 
sumption  at  all.  They  are  honest.  They  be¬ 
lieve  in  poor  monejq  and  they  take  the  proper 
steps  to  arrive  at  it.  But  when  a  gentleman 
believes  in  good  money,  which  can  be  made 
good  in  only  one  way,  then  he  is  not  justified 
in  striking  a  blow  at  one  of  the  most  essen¬ 
tial  features  of  the  resumption  act  without 
substituting  an  equivalent  measure. 

I  have  not  time  of  course  to  cover  the 
whole  ground  of  this  debate.  The  bill  which 
the  committee  have  attacked  in  part  contains 
several  provisions  for  the  resumption  of 
specie  payments  besides  that  of  which  they  , 
propose  the  repeal.  And  the  other  words  of 
that  act  will  remain,  of  course,  standing  un¬ 
supported  by  this  other  clause  and  emascu¬ 
lated  of  all  vigor  by  this  repeal,  leaving  us 
all  afloat  as  far  as  the  public  confidence  in 
future  resumption  is  concerned.  The  gentle¬ 
man  from  New  York,  who  I  think  has  an 
honorable  purpose  in  respect  to  the  resump¬ 
tion  of  specie  payments — I  refer  to  Mr. 
Hewitt — announces  the  fact  that  in  the 
passage  of  that  act  the  honor  of  the 
country  was  committed  to  its  execution,  but 
condemns  what  he  calls  the  haste  with  which 
it  was  adopted.  Is  it  possible  that  that  gen¬ 
tleman,  admitting  that  the  honor  of  the  coun¬ 
try  has  been  constitutionally  pledged,  is  him¬ 
self  willing  to  aid  in  striking  this  blow  at 
that  honor  in  the  presence  of  the  wrorld  ?  Can 
any  man  who  believes  that  the  country  is 
bound  to  exhaust  all  honorable  efforts  to  ar¬ 
rive  at  that  result,  can  such  a  gentleman  vote 
to  abolish  this  clause  in  the  act  until  all  pos¬ 
sible  measures  to  give  it  effect  have  been  tried 
and  found  wanting? 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  I  beg  tore- 
mind  the  gentleman  that  that  was  the  exact 
statement  I  made. 

Mr.  KASSON.  Am  I  to  understand  that 
the  gentleman  is  opposed  to  this  repeal? 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  Certainly. 

I  announced  my  position  to-day,  and 
moved  a  substitute. 

Mr.  KASSON.  Then  I  beg  to  apply  my  re¬ 
marks  to  the  other  gentlemen  who  accept  his 
premises  but  do  not  honorably  accept  his  con¬ 
clusions. 

We  stand,  then,  in  the  presence  of  a  de¬ 
sirable  object,  for  which  a  certain  provision 


13 


has  been  made  by  existing  laws.  And  in  that 
condition  of  things,  without  avowing  their 
hostility  to  the  object  of  the  law,  gentlemen 
are  here  proposing  to  take  away  that  part  of 
the  law  which  is  vital  to  the  rest  and  without 
which  the  remainder  cannot  be  executed,  and 
are  doing  it,  to  quote  the  platform  on  which 
they  stand,  because  it  is  a  “hindrance  to  re¬ 
sumption.”  Now,  sir,  look  for  a  moment  at 
the  political  deceit  of  that  proposition.  They 
say  that  a  law  which  declares  that  resump¬ 
tion  shall  take  effect  by  a  certain  time  and 
does  not  6ay  that  it  shall  not  come  prior  to 
that  time  is  a  hindrance  to  the  result  to  be 
arrived  at.  Is  that  consistent  with  your  two 
arguments  that  no  preparation  has  been  made 
and  that  it  is  not  possible  to  resume  by  the 
time  named  ?  If  there  is  any  significance  in 
terms,  this  must  be  a  hindrance,  because 
without  it  you  would  su  rive  at  resumption 
quicker.  Will  you  make  this  argument  in 
Indiana  ?  Will  you  say  that  you  are  going  to 
resume  specie  payments  before  the  1st  of  Jan¬ 
uary,  1879  ?  How  will  you  use  it  on  the  stump 
in  Indiana  and  in  New  York?  Will  you  not, 
on  the  contrary,  6ay  in  the  West  simply  that 
Tilden  is  for  the  repeal  of  the  resumption  act 
and  Hendricks  is  for  the  repeal  of  the  re¬ 
sumption  act  ?  Will  you  not  say  in  New  York 
and  the  East  that  it  means  to  arrive  at  re¬ 
sumption  sooner  than  1879  ?  And  will  you  not 
tell  the  greenbackers  of  Indiana  that  they 
must  come  and  help  elect  these  candidates  in 
order  to  defeat  the  resumption  of  specie  pay¬ 
ments  ?  Sir,  that  clause  of  the  platform  struck 
me  with  more  than  opposition;  it  struck  me 
with  a  feeling,  I  hope  I  may  be  permitted  to 
say,  of  disgust.  That  the  law  should  be  said 
to  be  positively  a  hindrance  to  resumption 
when  they  do  not  suggest  anything  except  its 
repeal  to  help  resumption,  that  seems  to  me 
a  positive  and  direct  evasion  of  the  responsi¬ 
bility  under  which  that  party  stands  to  the 
country.  It  is’ a  two-faced  declaration,  worthy 
of  the  politician  trained  in  the  school  of  Mar¬ 
tin  Yah  Buren. 

Mr.  Tilden  says  in  his  “message,”  as  some 
gentleman  has  called  it,  based  as  I  suppose 
upon  its  length,  that — 

To  amass  the  requisite  quantities— 

Alluding  to  an  accumulation  of  coin  for  the 
purpose  of  resumption — 

To  amass  the  requisite  quantities,  by  inter¬ 
cepting  from  the  current  flowing  out  of  the 


country,  and  by  acquiring  from  the  stocks 
which  exist  abroad,  without  disturbing  the 
equilibrium  of  foreign  money  markets,  is  a 
result  to  be  easily  worked  out  by  practical 
knowledge  and  judgment. 

Now,  if  this  is  a  result  to  be  easily  worked 
out  in  this  way,  why  have  not  his  friends 
proposed  a  better  plan  than  the  republican 
administration  has  proposed. 

Mr.  WILLIS.  We  will  when  the  responsi¬ 
bility  devolves  upon  us. 

Mr.  KASSON.  Why  have  you  not,  when 
the  responsibility  is  upon  you  in  this  House 
of  Representatives,  proposed  a  proper  meas¬ 
ure  ?  Why  has  not  a  single  measure  for  that 
purpose  come  from  a  committee  of  this  House 
while  under  the  control  of  the  democratic 
party  ?  'Why  have  they  not  moved  an  amend¬ 
ment  to  this  act  in  the  Committee  on  Bank¬ 
ing  and  Currency,  providing  for  the  accumu¬ 
lation  of  the  requisite  amounts  ? 

Mr.  WILLIS.  Because  there  is  a  better 
means  than  that  which  is  provided  by  the 
original  act. 

Mr.  KASSON.  And  why  does  not  the 
honorable  gentleman  for  whom  they  propose 
to  vote  suggest  those  easy  and  practical  ways 
for  arriving  at  that  result?  W'hy  is  it  that  the 
man  who  sees  no  obstacle,  who  wants  no  ob¬ 
stacle,  and  whose  friends  in  this  House  have 
not  the  necessary  knowledge — why  is  it  that 
he  does  not  supply  the  knowledge  that  will 
enable  them  before  this  session  closes  to  in¬ 
troduce  their  measure?  Certainly  this  side 
of  the  House  will  vote  for  it  with  great 
promptitude  if  it  tends  to  the  result  we  so 
much  desire — to  relieve  the  country  of  its 
uncertainty. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  think  the  more  you  exam¬ 
ine  the  position  of  this  question  the  more  you 
will  see  that  this  is  not  a  measure  honestly 
designed  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  but  is 
merely  a  party  bridge  across  a  political 
chasm.  Let  this  issue  be  distinctly  and  con¬ 
stantly  drawn,  that  the  party  to  whose  prin¬ 
ciples  I  am  permanently  attached  persists  in 
demanding  good  constitutional  money  for  the 
the  laborers,  the  farmers,  the  producers  of 
the  United  States,  for  all  the  people  of  the 
country,  while  the  so-called  party  jumps  at 
every  form  of  poor  money;  first  at  paper,  be¬ 
cause  it  is  poorer  than  gold;  and  then  at  silver, 
because  it  is  more  fluctuating,  more  depre¬ 
ciated  than  paper. 


RESUMPTION  OE  SPECIE  PAYMENTS. 


SPEECH  of  HON.  JOHN  A.  KASSON 

OF  IOWA, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OE  REPRESENTATIVES,  SATURDAY,  AUGUST  5,  1S7G. 


The  House  having  under  consideration  a 
substitute  for  the  bill  (H.  R.  No.  3074)  to  re- 
Deal  in  part  the  resumption  act  of  1875— 

Mr.  KASSON  said: 

Mr.  Speaxer  :  If  there  is  any  one  greater 
cause  of  discouragement  than  any  other  to  a 
gentleman  in  public  life,  it  is  the  frequent  in¬ 
stances  which  present  themselves  of  legisla¬ 
tive  impatience  and  haste  where  there  is 
great  need  of  legislative  deliberation.  No 
gentleman  upon  either  side  of  the  House, 
I  apprehend,  has  been  here  many  years  with¬ 
out  feeling  again  and  again  how  slight  are 
the  rewards  offered  in  our  parliamentary  sys¬ 
tem  to  those  gentlemen  who  desire  to  devote 
themselves  directly  to  the  solid  interests  of 
the  people  whom  they  represent.  We  go  on 
from  day  to  day,  from  -week  to  week  with 
our  legislation  without  any  patient  and  thor¬ 
ough  investigation  into  the  real,  substantial 
interests  of  the  country.  But  when  a  so- 
called  political  question  is  presented  on  this 
floor  parties  rally,  numbers  are  aggregated, 
pressure  is  brought  to  bear,  debate  is  cut  off, 
and  the  party  lash  applied  irrespective  of 
what  the  great  radical  interests  of  the  people 
require. 

Sir,  the  question  before  the  House  is  one 
of  a  class  that  demands  the  most  serious 
thought  and  deliberation  and  inquiry  into  the 
great  business  interests  of  the  country  before 
we  can  with  any  just  right  say  that  the  re¬ 
peal  of  the  day  of  resumption  is  demanded. 

Sir,  not  one  word  of  proof  is  presented  to 
you  by  the  Banking  and  Currency  Commit¬ 
tee;  not  one  particle  of  evidence  is  supplied 
by  the  gentlemen  who  have  taken  the  floor 
which  can  be  relied  upon  by  a  deliberative 
body,  to  show  that  you  cannot  give  this 
great  boon  of  sound  money  to  the  people  by 
the  1st  day  of  January,  1879. 

Finding  myself  met  here  by  political  plat¬ 
forms,  political  candidates,  political  consid¬ 
erations,  I  feel  how  vain  it  is  to  address  my¬ 
self  with  probable  good  results  to  that  judg¬ 
ment  of  the  representatives  of  the  people 
which  seeks  alone  the  public  good. 

Gentlemen  say  no  preparation  has  been 
made  for  the  resumption  of  specie  payments. 
Sir,  since  the  financial  panic  of  1873^  enor¬ 
mous  preparation  has  been  made.  Not  by 
legislative  efforts  so  much  as  by  the  volun¬ 
tary  efforts  of  the  people  themselves.  Econ¬ 
omies  have  come  into  public,  social,  and  bus¬ 
iness  life  throughout  the  country.  Expen¬ 
ses  are  reduced  everywhere.  Hundreds  of 
millions  of  debts  have  been  discharged  di¬ 
rectly  by  payments,  and  other  hundreds  of 
millions  have  been  discharged  by  the  proces¬ 
ses  of  the  bankrupt  courts. 

More  than  that,  sir;  in  the  last  fiscal  year, 
commencing  on  the  30th  of  June,  the  balance 


of  trade — without  estimating  the  balance  of 
specie  shipments — the  balance  of  trade  shows 
$77,000,000  of  gold  value  in  favor  of  the  Uni¬ 
ted  States.  And  the  good  work  is  going  on 
still,  reducing  imports  of  luxuries  and  in¬ 
creasing  exports. 

And  in  presence  of  the  fact  that  this  law 
of  1875  was  passed  nearly  two  years  after 
the  disaster  came  u^>on  the  country  that 
brought  the  hard  times,  (the  failure  of  the 
Northern  Pacific  Railroad,)  to  this  law, 
passed  in  1875,  the  politicians  and  the  dem¬ 
agogues  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the 
other  are  attributing  the  hard  times  of  1873 
as  the  effect  of  proposed  resumption !  The 
hard  times  came  immediately  from  extrava¬ 
gant  railroad  enterprises,  and  ultimately 
from  the  extravagance  induced  by  irredeem¬ 
able  and  cheap  paper  money.  Mr.  Speaker  ,• 
the  question  has  been  abused  by  the  politi¬ 
cians.  It  is  presented  here  to-day  by  the 
politicians.  As  one  gentleman  has  said,  in 
the  ninth  month  of.  the  session  a  political 
platform  brings  it  here — no,  not  even  a  po¬ 
litical  platform,  but  a  political  candidate  for 
the  Presidency  pronounces  in  his  letter,  just 
published,  for  its  repeal,  and  the  bugle-call 
of  party  summons  you  to  follow  it  and  re¬ 
peal  a  statute  whose  whole  action  has  been 
beneficial  to  permanent  American  interests. 

It  is  bringing  us  to  the  economies  demand¬ 
ed  and  has  brought  us  largely  to  them.  It 
has  brought  national,  State,  and  municipal 
governments  to  economical  practices.  It  is 
bringing  the  balance  ot  trade  largely  in  our 
favor,  amounting,  including  the  specie  ship¬ 
ments,  to  a  balance  of  $130,000,000  in  the 
last  year,  as  shown  by  the  official  letter 
which  I  send  to  the  reporters  to  be  published 
as  part  of  my  remarks,  verifying  what  I  have 
said. 

The  letter  is  as  follows  : 

Treasury  Department, 

Bureau  op  Statistics. 

July  8,  1876. 

Dear  Sib:  I  transmit  herewith,  at  your  re¬ 
quest,  a  statement  showing  the  imports  into 
and  exports  from  the  United.  States  during 
the  eleven  months  of  the  fiscal  year  ended 
May  31,  with  an  estimate  (from  some  of  the 
ports)  for  June,  and  giving  the  following  re- 
suits* 

Imports  for  the  fiscal  year  ended  June  30, 
1876,  $460,087,277;  for  the  same  period  in  1875, 
$533,005,436,  showing  a  falling  off  of  $72,918,159* 

Exports  of  Domestic  products, 

(mixed  values) .  $591,677,554 

Exports  of  foreign  products....  14,393,342 


$606,070,896 

For  the  fiscal  year  1875  $559,237,638  domestic 
and  $14,158,611  foreign,  showing  an  increase  in 
the  total  exports  of  $32,674,647. 

It  wall  be  observed  that  the  domestic  ex¬ 
ports  above  given  are  expressed  in  mixed 


15 


refuge  of  ignorant  malice.  Is  it  true?  No 
man  denies  that  always,  at  all  times  and  in 
all  parties,  some  bad  men  obtain  places  of 
honor  and  emolument,  and  disgrace  by  their 
misconduct  and  their  venality  themselves  and 
their  friends.  It  was  so  in  the  times  of  Wash¬ 
ington  and  Jefferson,  and  every  other  Presi¬ 
dent  the  nation  ever  had.  High  names  might 
be  recalled  from  the  distance  that  gives  ob¬ 
livion  that  were  polluted  by  jobbery  and 
bribery. 

But  fortunately  we  have  official  documents 
that  show'  in  rare  contrasts  the  fidelity  and 
honesty  of  official  men  since  1834.  On  the 
19tli  day  of  June,  1876,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  reported  to  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  a  full  and  detailed  statement  of  re¬ 
ceipts  and  disbursements  from  January  1, 
1834,  to  June  30,  1875;  and  also  the  amount 
of  defalcations  in  gross  and  the  ratio  of 
losses  per  $1,000  to  the  aggregate  received 
and  disbursed,  in  answer  to  a  resolution  of 
the  Senate  of  February  9, 1876. 

I  have  caused  this  official  statement  to  be 
tabulated  so  as  to  show  the  exact  state  by 
presidential  periods,  and  I  commend  it  to  my 
Democratic  friends  as  excellent  reading  for 
the  vacation,  and  insert  it  here  in  my  re¬ 
marks. 

Statement  showing  the  receipts  and  disburse¬ 
ments  of  the  Government  from  January  1, 
1834,  to  June  30,  1875;  exhibiting  also  the 
amount  of  defalcations  and  the  ratio  of  losses 
per  $1,000  to  the  aggregate  received  and  dis¬ 
bursed,  arranged  in  periods  as  nearly  as 
practicable  of  four  years  each.  The  disburse¬ 
ments  for  the  Post  Office  Department  are 
given  separately . 


Period. 

Amount. 

Loss  on 
$1,000. 

Jan.  1,  1834,  to  Dec.  31, 
1837.— Andrew'  Jackson, 
(Dem.,)  Px-esidont: 
Gross  receipts . 

*135,995,960  92 

$10  17 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

110,308,325  19 

10  55 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

11,697,884  18 

1  17 

Jan.  1,  1838,  to  Dec.  31, 
1841.— Martin  Yan  Bu- 
ren,(Dem.,)  President: 
Gross  receipts . 

129,948,548  91 

3  01 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

137,094,438  34 

21  15 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

18,284,961  77 

2  83 

Jan.  1,  1842,  to  June  30, 
1845.— J.  Tyler,  (Whig,) 
President : 

Gross  receipts . 

116,736,004  87 

3  68 

Gross  disbursements,  ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office.. 

109,187,401  24 

10  37 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

18,666,750  20 

14 

July  1, 1845.  to  June  30, 
1849.— Janies  K.  Polk, 
(Dem.,)  President: 
Gross  receipts . 

201,857,508  45 

08 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office.. 

205,194,700  57 
16,S61,478  41 

8  34 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

15 

July  1,1849,  to  June  30, 
1853.— Taylor  and  Fill¬ 
more,  (Whigs,)  Pres’s : 
Gross  receipts . 

211,908,612  91 

1  30 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

194,370,493  14 

7  64 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

26,582,570  74 

1  99 

Statement  showing  the  receipts  and  disburse¬ 
ments  of  the  Government ,  etc. — Continued. 


Periods. 

Amount. 

Loss  on 

$1,000 

July  1,  1853,  to  June  30, 
1857.— Franklin  Pierce, 
(Dem  ,)  President: 
Gross  receipts . 

282.179,829  56 

75 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

285,638.875  65 

5  86 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

40,439,110  70 

6  92 

July  1, 1857,  to  June  30, 
1861.  —  Jas.  Buchanan, 
(Dem.,)  President: 
Gross  receipts . 

312,359,679  56 

62 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

328,183,268  39 

6  98 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

56,957,922  74 

3  02 

July  1,  1861,  to  June  30, 
1865. — Ab’ham  Lincoln, 
(Hep.,)  President : 
Gross  receipts . 

4,670,460,137  61 

10 

Gross  disbursements.ex- 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

4,667,457,921  22 
48,779,085  45 

1  41 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

1  91 

July  1, 1865,  to  June  30, 
1869. — and’w  Johnson, 
(War  Dem.,)  Presi’ent: 
Gross  receipts . 

4,042,316,438  46 

63 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

3,891,576,259  10 

48 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

81,016,286  91 

2  06 

July  1,  1869,  to  June  30, 
18/3.— U.  S.  Grant,  (Re¬ 
publican,)  President: 
Gross  receipts . 

• 

2,576.645,585  22 

.. 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 
P.  Office  disbursements.. 

2,601,158,569  90 
104,132,079  69 

40 
1  13 

July  1,1873,  to  June  30, 
1875. — U.  S.  Grant,  (Re¬ 
publican,)  President: 
Gross  receipts . 

1,420,222,898  62 

22 

Gross  disbursements, ex¬ 
clusive  of  Post  Office. . 

1,40(5,699,819  31 

26 

P.  Office  disbursements.. 

65,737,724  03 

53 

GROSS  TOTAL  RECEIPTS. 


Period. 

Receipts. 

Losses. 

Loss  on 
$1,0000. 

Jan.  1, 1834,  to 
June  30, 1861.. 
July  1, 1861,  to 
June  30, 1875.. 

$1,390,9S6,145  18 

12,709,645,059  91 

$2,907,521 31 

4,348,098  10 

$2  09 

34 

GROSS  TOTAL  DISBURSEMENTS. 

Period. 

Disburse¬ 

ments. 

Losses. 

Loss  on 
$1,000. 

On  all  acct’s. 

except  P.  O. 

Jan.  1, 1834,  to 
June  30, 1861.. 

J  uly  1,  1861  to 
June  30, 1875.. 

Postoffice  dis¬ 
bursements: 

Jan.  1,  1834,  to 
June  3  >,  1861.. 

J  uly  1, 1861,  to 
June  30, 1875.. 


*l,369,977,o02.5> 

12,566,892,569.53 

189,490,678.74 

299,665,176.08 


12,361,722.91  *9.02 


9,905,205.37 

576,109.78 

413,472.60 


78 


3.04 

1.33 


16 


FROM  JACKSON’S  SECOND  TERM  TO  THE  END  OF 
BUCHANAN’S  TERM 

Gross  total  receipts  and  disbursements  from 
January  1,  1834,  to  June  30,  1861— $2,950, 454,- 
326.44  includes  loans  and  Post  Office;  $2,250,- 
356,731.04  excludes  loans  and  Post  Office. 
Gross  total  losses  for  the  same  period,  (no 
loss  on  loans.)  $15,845,354. 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,000,  including  loans  and 
Post  Office,  $5.36. 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,000,  excluding  loans 
and  Post  Office,  $7.04. 

UNDER  LINCOLN,  JOHNSON  AND  GRANT. 

Gross  total  receipts  and  disbursements  from 
July  1, 1861,  to  June  30,  1875— $25,576,202,805.52 
includes  loans  and  Post  Office;  $9,701,614,481.43 
excludes  loans  and  Post  Office. 

Gross  total  losses  for  tlie  same  period,  (no 
loss  on  loans.)  $14,666,776,07. 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,000,  including  loans  and 
Post  Office,  57  cents ! 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,000,  excludingloansand 
Post  Office,  $1.51 ! 

It  appears  then,  from  the  official  records 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  prepared  in  obe¬ 
dience  to  an  order  of  the  Senate,  that — 

The  gross  total  of  receipts  and 
disbursements  from  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  Jackson’s  second 
term  to  the  end  of  Buchanan’s 
including  loans  and  Post  Of¬ 
fice,  -was . $2,950,454,326.44 

The  gross  total  of  receipts  and 
disbursements  for  the  same 
period,  excluding  loans  and 

Post  Office,  was . $2,250,356,731  04 

Gross  losses .  15,8-45,354  00 

Ratio  of  losses  per  $1,(  00  on  total 
receipts  and  disbursements, 
including  loans  and  Post  Of¬ 
fice .  5  36 

Ratio  on  same,  excluding  loans 
and  Post  Ofhce .  7  04 

Under  Lincoln,  Johnson  and  Grant  both  re¬ 
ceipts  and  disbursements  were  infinitely 
larger,  and  yet  the  gross  amount  of  losses 
was  smaller  and  the  percentage  almost  ridic¬ 
ulously  disproportioned.  Thus — 

The  gross  total  of  receipts  and 
disbursements, including  loans 

and  Post  Office,  was . $2,576,202,805  32 

On  the  same,  including  loans 

and  Post  Office . ....9,701,614,481  43 

Gross  losses .  14,666,776  07 

Ratio  of  losses  per  $1,000  on  to¬ 
tal  receipts  and  disburse¬ 
ments,  including  loans  and 

Post  Office,  .  57 

Ratio  on  same,  including  loans 
and  Post  Office .  151 

Thus  under  Democracy  in  its  purity  before 
the  war,  and  under  Republican  administra¬ 
tion  including  the  war,  the  receipts  and  dis¬ 
bursements  of  the  first,  including  loans  and 
Post  Office,  wrere  about  one-ninth  of  the  sec¬ 
ond;  the  receipts  and  disbursements  of  the 
first,  including  loans  and  Post  Office,  were 
about  one- fourth  of  those  of  the  second:  while 
the  losses  and  defalcations  of  the  Democratic 
period  were  nearly  ten  times  as  great  when 
the  loans  and  Post  Office  are  included,  and 
four-and-a-half  times  as  great  when  those 
items  are  excluded. 

But  the  table  bears  closer  investigation, 
and  you  will  find,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the 
nearer  you  come  to  this  actual  time  in  which 
we  live,  to  this  present,  existing,  much- 
abused  Administration  of  President  Grant, 
the  standard  of  honor  and  fidelity,  as  meas¬ 
ured  by  the  official  reports,  becomes  higher 
and  firmer. 


The  very  lowest  rate  of  losses  ever  reached 
in  this  present  Presidential  term : 


On  receipts . 22 

On  disbursements . 26 

In  the  Post  Office . . . 53 


and  this  tabular  statement  stands  in  grand 
contrast  writh  the  record  of  any  President  of 
any  party  who  has  ever  preceded  President 
Grant. 

So  much  for  the  charge  of  gross  official  dis¬ 
honesty  reaching  through  and  corrupting  the 
entire  Republican  party.  The  official  tables 
give  the  lie  direct  to  this  wholesale  campaign 
accusation. 

Yet  in  face  of  these  known  facts  the  Dem¬ 
ocratic  party  in  the  House  organized  them¬ 
selves  into  a  scandal-making  machine,  took 
upon  themselves  the  office  of  professional 
slanderers,  and  charged  every  one  of  the 
regular  committees  of  the  House,  and  many 
special  ones,  with  this  unsavory  business. 

Public  business  has  been  willfully  neglect¬ 
ed;  public  necessities  ignored,  and  the  whole 
weight  and  power  of  Congress  devoted  to  the 
manufacture  of  political  capital  for  the  pend¬ 
ing  election. 

Every  broken  official  kicked  out  for  thiev¬ 
ery,  every  cashiered  officer,  every  nameless 
vagabond  w as  invited,  solicited,  urged  to  tes¬ 
tify.  Partly  for  revenge,  partly  for  witness 
fees,  partly  for  cheap  notoriety,  these  birds 
of  evil  omen  flock  to  the  Capitol,  thronged 
the  corridors,  took  possession  of  the  commit¬ 
tee-rooms  and  of  the  committees,  prompted 
questions,  invented  answers,  retailed  old 
scandals  picked  up  second-hand,  the  dead 
refuse  of  the  streets,  to  be  greedily'  swallowed 
by  the  mouths  that  stood  agape  for  such  car¬ 
rion  food. 

The  common  rights  of  individual  citizens 
were  grossly  violated,  the  sanctity  of  private 
correspondence  outraged,  the  telegraphic  mes¬ 
sages  unlawfully  forced  from  their  proper 
keepers,  citizens  imprisoned  by  order  of  the 
House  for  no  valid  reason,  and  all  the  rights 
of  private  individuals  secured  by  the  Consti¬ 
tution  trampled  down  by  the  decree  of  the 
House  of  Representatives.  Secret  sessions 
were  held,  parties  charged  with  wrong-doing 
kept  in  ignorance,  and  the  poor  privilege 
granted  to  all  criminals  of  an  open  investiga¬ 
tion  and  of  meeting  witnesses  face  to  face 
was  denied. 

In  all  this  one  single  and  most  melancholy 
case  of  official  misdoing  has  been  undeniably 
made  known,  and  that  has  been  fairly  pre¬ 
sented  to  the  proper  tribunal  by  the  active 
co-operation  of  the  Republicans  in  the  House. 

You  are  now  trying,  Mr.  Speaker,  by  a  most 
singular  report  from  the  Committee  on  Naval 
Affairs  to  smirch  the  reputation  of  another 
officer  to  whom  neither  the  committee  nor 
the  House  dare  give  the  benefits  of  cross-exam¬ 
ination  of  witnesses  and  of  an  open  impeach¬ 
ment  and  a  fair  trial  before  the  Senate  and 
the  nation. 

Sir,  the  injustice,  the  gross  partiality,  the 
secret  inquisitions  of  the  committees  of  this 
House  are  justly  a  stench  and  an  offense  to 
the  American  people.  Above  all  things  they 
like  fair  play,  a»d  that  is  what  the  Democracy 
have  most  carefully  refused  in  the  whole 
course  of  these  examinations. 


